I have always made bad choices in life. Bad choices when it comes to friends. Bad choices when it comes to cars. Bad choices when it comes to restaurants. I can’t count the times I’ve gotten food poisoning. You would think I would just learn my lesson and stop eating out. My latest series of bad choices landed me a job. I don’t want to recall what got me here. But I’m a mailman now. My uniform arrived in the mail. It’s a soft blue color that’s dark and yet a light tone at once. It’s pretty comfy and they tossed in a nice bomber style jacket. Having a job handed to you might be a nice thing. I should be thankful but this job was dangerous and I would die if I refused it.

I was standing in front of an office building where I had been told my training would be held. A blank swipe card to get inside the building came with my uniform. I was pacing putting off going inside. Even though the morning was chilly I was sweating. I did not want to go inside. I did not want to start this job. Though, I feared what would happen to me if I ditched. Gathering all my courage I swiped the card and went through the now unlocked door. Regret filled my chest when the door closed locking behind me.

The room I was standing inside was pretty bare. Off white walls and off-white carpet. Florescent lights hummed away above. The room was empty aside from a woman sitting at a fold out table. She didn’t even look up to greet me. She just kept her eyes glued to a magazine she flipped through looking very bored. I walked up to her, sweat still sticking my shirt to my back. She still didn’t look at me. Instead, she sat, chin in her hand snapping at her gum.

“I uh...” I started then found it suddenly impossible to speak.

Her eyes darted up at me and I took a step back in spite of myself. She looked like any pretty receptionist you could find anywhere. Aside from her yellow eyes and mouth that was far too long for her face.

“Your partner is going to be here in a second. Got any smokes?” She asked me in a raspy voice.

I shook my head and she lost any interest in me. I was hired as a mailman but if I was a normal mailman, I would only have to worry about bad road conditions and mean dogs. This was not at all a normal job. The mail I was going to deliver was going to supernatural creatures. I know it’s a silly idea. I guess Bigfoot get mails sometimes. Who knew?

“Knock knock!”

I raised my head to the voice and the knocking sound on the other side of the room. A door I hadn’t noticed yet opened and out peeked the head of who I thought to be my new work partner. I kind of didn’t like the type of person who would cheerfully say knock knock before opening a door. This guy might be too much for me to handle. He didn’t notice my frown and he smiled over to us. He was wearing the same uniform as me, but it fit much differently. He was at least seven feet tall, and built like a tank. He covered the distance to us quickly, taking my hand into both of his in an excited shake. His kind smiling face did not at all match the intimidating body of his. While he shook my hand, I could not take my eyes off the top of his head. I had to strain my neck to see, but my mind refused to process it. This big strong man had... Dog ears. Fluffy sandy brown dog ears standing up on the top of his head. Scruffy hair covered when normal human ears should be. I finally tore my eyes away to notice other details about him. The mental shock of seeing such cute ears on a tall buff man made me not notice his legs. His uniform pants had been rolled up to the knees to accommodate dog shaped legs. They were covered in the same sandy brown fur of his ears. His paws had claws that looked big and sharp enough to cut bricks in half. So not as cute as his ears. His teeth also looked terribly sharp. His hands were human enough but his nails ended in claws. He was being very careful not to nick me during our handshake. I knew my new co-worker wasn’t going to be human but I wasn’t expecting, well this.

“You’re a dog?” I asked not being able to stop myself.

“What’s a dog?”

His smile never faded and he looked so honest in his question I almost laughed. The woman snapped her gum so loudly it made it both of us look at her then get down to business. Or at least try too.

“I’m-”

My partner said his name, but because he wasn’t human his name was not meant for humans to say. It sounded like a garble of growls and after a few minutes of me trying to repeat it we realized it just wasn’t possible.

“Rufus.” The woman said not looking up at us.

“Oh right! My human name is Rufus! You’re Toby, right? I’m glad to be working with you!” Rufus said with a big smile. If his teeth weren’t so sharp, it would be a nice expression.

“His type is the one of only kind that is alright working with humans. Here. You need to deliver this letter to Mr. Chatter.” As she spoke, she took a red envelope from under her magazine for Rufus to take.

The tall man thanked her and safely tucked the envelope away into his jacket. He was ready to go I wasn’t. I was still a little confused about the whole thing. Rufus noticed my expression and smiled again trying to look friendly.

“We are going through the Maze today.” He started.

"The Maze?" I asked slowly.

To get ready for my odd job I had spent the last week reading up on cryptids, supernatural things and any other kind of information along those lines. I didn’t believe in most of it, but with a dog man in front of me, I should really start reconsidering what I believed. In those hours of looking I didn't come across anything called the maze before.

“How to describe it? it's um... alot of the same rooms. It has two floors so to speak. The light floor that is just a bunch of rooms and hallways and the dark second floor. I think different versions of this place appear for different people. But we're going to an easy safer version of it. We'll be sticking to the first floor. Because you are human the Maze may be tough on you. Your uniform protects you from most things. The monsters on the first floor won’t attack you, or really be able to see you. Mr. Chatter is on the first floor. He might look scary but is a really friendly! Oh right, you’re human so maybe not. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is you shouldn’t worry because we’re mailmen. The whole ‘don’t shoot the messenger’ applies to us.”

I know Rufus was trying to be friendly and ease my worries about my new job and where we were going. And I had been pretty stressed about the whole thing. From the small amount I had heard where we were headed, I didn’t like it at all. I should be really worrying about what fresh hell I was walking into. However, I got distracted. Rufus turned a little when he was speaking and I caught a glimpse of it. He had a tail. I couldn’t handle that. It was a curved fluffy thing that was too damn cute I wanted to scream. This man looked like he could eat a tank for breakfast and he had the nerve to have a cute fluffy tail. I could not deal with the juxtaposition of his tough appearance and cute tail. Pick one or the other. You can't have both. I hated it. He misread my expression as still being worried. He slapped a large comforting hand on my shoulder and laughed.

“You’ll do fine! With my nose we won’t get lost. Just don’t interact with any other humans you find lost inside. Your job is to deliver mail. Not to save humans. We get in a lot of trouble if we go outside our job duties. But you’re doing great already! You already took one step inside the Maze, so what’s a few more?”

I nearly jumped and looked around the empty room. It felt odd, even so, I didn’t think I had walked into a supernatural area.

“This is part of the Maze?” I asked still looking around.

“We call them Zero rooms. It’s a neutral area for meetings. They can be controlled when to appear and who can be allowed inside. It’s pretty neat!”

I didn’t share Rufus’ excitement. I guess he was right. I had already taken a few steps into this world and had a big man to protect me. Human or not, I might be alright. I was feeling a bit better about this whole thing. I followed behind Rufus and to the door on the other side of the room. Before we left Rufus turned to address the woman behind us.

“Please pick up some eggs for dinner tonight.” He called out to her. When I looked at him confused, he gave me a kind smile. “She’s my daughter. Third marriage.”

I did a triple take. Those two couldn’t possibly be related. I didn’t have time to ask about it. We were through the door and inside the so called Maze. All my fear came back and crashing down.The place looked very much like a bigger version of the room we had been inside moment before. I turned to look behind us to see the door we came inside had disappeared. No turning back now. The first few rooms I could see into had the same off white wall paper, but the floor was hardwood someone dumped white paint over. It looked like the rooms just kept going, but a few rooms in, the poorly painted wood turned into carpet.

I followed behind my new co-worker looking around straining to hear anything. I thought creatures would be around and I really didn’t want to run into them, protected by my uniform or not. I suddenly wondered what that meant. The fabric really didn't feel extra durable or thick. I didn’t think it would save me if anything with claws decided to make me a meal. I decided to ask a little more about the job I had been forced into.

“So uh, how do these uniforms work?” I asked.

“Oh!” Rufus looked over at me with his friendly face. This guy really was like an excited dog. “They’re really special! I don’t understand the process of how they’re made but I heard each has some of the Silver King’s hair in it. So, it’s like, super tough. Uh, what’s a good example for a human? Like a bullet proof vest? If you were shot you won’t even feel it. It also keeps some lesser creatures that would do your harm from even being able to see you. That doesn’t mean you’re invincible though. There are some creatures that can tear through the uniforms but it’s your first day. You won’t come across them... I hope...”

The last bit was said so softly I almost didn’t hear him. I had met the Silver King and he was the reason why I was stuck with this damn job. But he was a big deal in the supernatural world. It was a bad idea to drop his name and I really didn’t want to think back to how we met. I sort of understood how the uniforms worked now. Even with that comforting idea of a god level bullet proof vest, I was still scared walking around the horrible place we were in.

As we walked, I saw that the walls had marked spots. Messages from people who had gotten lost. They used whatever they could to write them. From what I guessed was nail polish, to scratching away at the wall paper. I hadn’t heard any signs of life beyond the carpet-muffled sound of our own footsteps and, without any other noise to cover it, the oddly disconcerting hum of the lights above. Rufus clearly knew where he was going even though everything looked the same. But as we kept walking, I started to see more messages and stains on the ground I feared was dried blood. I didn’t want to think about who or what left those stains behind. I stopped in front of one wall with frantic writing in a faded sharpie. It was a name and address. That was all. I don’t know why it got me to stop. There were plenty of names written and we passed by many old pleas for help. I couldn’t help but wonder about the people who had died here. Or who was still lost. And their loved ones who was waiting for them to come home. I had my phone in my pocket. Without realizing I had taken it out to take a photo of the message I was staring at.

“It’s best if you don’t.”

I froze when I heard Rufus speak. There was sudden tension between us. He was telling the truth. It’s best if I don’t let myself go down the route of trying to find what was lost. Nothing good could come of it. I turned off my phone and returned it to my pocket.

I think he felt bad for making it awkward. He kept darting his eyes back at me clearly trying to think of something to say.

“You know, things have changed a lot since I last came by. Because this place adjusts to humans' expectations it’s never the same twice. Two people could be right next to each other but seeing something different. The last time I was here it smelled so much of chemicals and bleach, it was hard to get around. But now it’s pretty nice. I can understand why creatures have been moving here recently. Lots of space. Free food.”

Rufus was trying to fill the silence by chatting away. When he mentioned the free food part, he gestured to a stain on the floor we had just walked by. We had been walking by an increasing amount of them. The one he nodded his head towards looked fresher than the others had. I looked up at him, face twisted in horror over what he was implying.

“I keep forgetting you’re human. That was... very insensitive of me.”

We decided to walk in silence after that. I just wanted to find whatever Mr. Chatter was and get out of there. Even though we didn’t see any bodies, it was becoming very clear people had died in this space. I hadn't heard or seen anything and Rufus hadn't named a big bad monster to look out for. So, what was killing all these people, taking their bodies and leaving their belongings behind? I walked around the copper-colored stains on the ground but found it slowly get harder to walk around them. I really didn’t want us to get to the point where the floor was entirely that dried blood color. I soon found out I didn’t have any choice.

Because I had my phone turned off, I didn’t have any idea how much time had passed. It felt like we walked for at least an hour getting deeper into the endless twists and turns. To my surprise, we came across a door. I had very much hoped we arrived where we needed to deliver the envelope. It was not meant to be. We still had some walking ahead of us. Rufus stopped in front of the door and paused before opening it. He looked down at me, his expression deep in thought.

“Do you know any songs?”

It was such a weird question out of the blue. Still, I should just go along he said to keep me safe in this strange place.

“Maybe. Why?” I looked around trying to see any changes. We were still alone surrounded by traces of death.

“This room might be a bit... upsetting for people who not have adjusted to... certain smells. I find singing distracts me enough to get through it. Well, doing two things at once is hard for me. Not sure about your kind though...”

Rufus really seemed like the type to not be good at multitasking. It was nice of him to take my newness to the job into consideration and warn me a head of time. I didn’t know if singing would help. And I honestly was embarrassed to sing in front of anyone. I still should trust him and at least try. But damn my brain for not functioning in that moment. The only song I could think of was one from an old animated movie I watched to death in my childhood. I didn’t remember the name of the movie. For some reason my brain decided only remember the song. It was a short one. I felt my face flush from embarrassment. There was no way I was going to sing in this situation. I had thought Rufus was a dumb, yet nice guy. Still, with a method unknown to myself, he not only convinced me to sing but we went through the short song twice. I was surprised he was smart enough to remember the lyrics after hearing it once. It made me feel a little bit prepared for whatever was behind that door.

Rufus didn’t even pause in his singing when he opened the door and the smell hit us. My stomach fluttered as I started to feel queasy but oddly enough the singing helped. I took one step into the room and all the willpower drained from me completely.

The room was small. It would only take me ten steps to get to the other side and the door. Those few steps were too much for me. The entire room had been soaked with blood. I could almost handle the rotting smell but the added sense of the sight made my entire body freeze. Because the room was the same color, I hadn’t noticed the shape vaguely resembling a person at first. It was a mass of gore and it I squinted I could make out human features like limbs and a head. I didn't want to squint. I didn’t want to look. I squeezed my eyes shut and took one step forwards. Rufus was still singing on the other side so if I followed his voice, I would be fine. The mass of gore was in the corner. I wouldn’t trip on it if I just walked straight and towards my co-worker. I tried to join into the song but only managed a weak few words.

So far, I hadn’t been in any actual danger. I hadn’t seen any creatures, aside from Rufus. He did his best to comfort me and tell me how even if something did attack me, I would be safe. Even knowing all that I couldn’t handle that room. Every step I took made my skin crawl and stomach turn. The blood stuck to my shoes and when I stepped down my foot slide a little on the soaking wet floor. My hands started to shake and I shoved them in my pocket trying to hide how scared I was.

“Hey let’s go, hey let’s go...” I muttered to myself the part of the song.

Between my voice and Rufus’, I heard another. A small whisper coming from behind me. So small I didn’t think I had heard anything at first.

“help....”

That thing in the corner couldn’t be alive. Nothing could be alive in that room. I was stressed out and hearing things. I raised my voice trying to drown it out but it trembled.

“I’m h-happy as can be...”

“help...”

From how close Rufus sounded I knew I was only a step or two from out of this nightmare room. I froze again when I felt something brush against my ankle. Slowly fingers wrapped around just where my pant leg stopped. The grip was weak. Every nerve in my body was set on edge as I felt something wet soak through my sock from where the hand grabbed me. I heard that plea for help once more. With a burst of strength, I shot out of the room, kicking off what ever had taken a hold of me. I heard Rufus close the door. I collapsed against the wall, shaking violently and tears threatened to fall. I curled up, head on my knees trying to calm myself down. So what if my uniform was magic and could protect me from bullets? I wasn’t being protected from any mental trauma from this place. Rufus was nice enough to not say anything to me as I collected myself. I bet he would have given me as much time as needed however we were on a time limit I wasn’t aware of.

“The red envelopes are time sensitive. If we don’t deliver them fast enough, they explode. Your uniform would protect you but... it might destroy the room we’re in and cause you to be lost somewhere between rooms so um... It’s best if we get going. I swear, we’re really close. Only two more rooms.”

Staring at my now bloody sneakers, it took everything I had to stand back up. Only two more rooms. I had to do this to get the hell out of there. To my surprise I found our surroundings back to normal. Well, as normal as this place gets. The walls had gone back to the bare off white without writing or stains. If it stayed like that, I could handle two more rooms.

True to his word, we passed through two more hallways and into the last room. It looked all the same to me. I was glad to have him as my guide and in that moment wondered why I was even with him. I mean, Rufus clearly could do this on his own. Maybe this was my shadowing training day? Some places did make you just watch someone for the day. It was the only thing I could think of.

“Mr. Chatters should be behind that door. Just knock and he’ll show up.” Rufus told me when he had entered the last room.

It was a dead end, and the first dead end I had seen in this place. On one wall had a drawn outline of a door, but no real way out. Even though we were so close to the end, anything Rufus was saying had been lost to me because I had seen her.

A little girl no older than ten frantically struggling to free her leg that had phased through the floor. She was dirty and looked like she had been stuck here for a long time. The poor thing looked scared to death. She was struggling so hard, and bending her leg in a way that looked painful. It gave a little bit of give. I thought if she had a little bit more strength, she could pull herself free. Rufus saw me looking at her and he smiled.

“She’s stuck between floors. She’s actually on floor two, but with her leg stuck here it looks like she’s on this floor. Pretty neat huh? This place works in such weird ways. Anyway, lets-”

I didn’t let him finish. I just couldn’t leave her. I ran forwards and wrapped my arms around her to try and pull her free. The moment I took a hold of her, my surroundings changed. I was no longer in the dull yet safe area but inside a place so dark I could only see because of a lit road flare burning away a few feet from us. The poor girl was screaming trying to get me off of her. I don’t know why, but the moment I took a hold of her it transported me to a different floor. One much darker and dangerous.

“I’m trying to help! It’s alright!” I told her frantically trying to calm her down. I really didn’t blame her for freaking out because someone had suddenly grabbed her.

With my help I got some of her leg free. I wasn't fast enough though. I felt something hit my back hard. I didn’t want to look behind me to see what was clawing at my back. Rufus was right, the uniforms did work. The thing was a mass of dark fur and teeth. It snagged the fabric but it could not cut it to get to my tender flesh. I saw hundreds of eyes glittering in the darkness looking at us. A rumbling growl came and I nearly gave up on everything right then. I felt a sudden flash of pain on my cheek. The creature on my back had cut me in its struggle of trying to get to my back. In that moment I realized a fault of the uniforms. It only protected what it was covering. My head was fair game if any more creatures came out. I had to get us both out of there fast. The girl had stopped struggling and now it was only me trying to free her.

I felt a strong grip on my arm and I screamed. Rufus suddenly appeared. He tore the creature from my back, tossing it into the darkness with one hand.

“Let go of her! If you keep touching her, you’ll stay on this floor, you’ll die in a few minutes!” His voice was stern but full of worry.

I knew I was making a mistake but I shook my head. I couldn’t just leave a little girl behind. Dark shapes swooped in. I saw light shining off their teeth as they tried to attack us. Rufus was able to swat them away but his hands were getting cut from the sharp claws. He easily could have pulled me from the girl. Instead of forcing me, he wanted me to make the right choice. He was such a kind person trying to talk me down from a mistake.

“You need to let her go. She’s already dead.”

That couldn’t be true. She had been moving a few seconds before. If I could get pull her free, we could get her out of there. My eyes became unfocused and filled with tears. I could only see the girl's limp arms dangling and a sparkling bracelet reflecting off the road flare. A sound made me jerk my head up. A grunting roar cut through the darkness. Rufus reacted to it by kicking his leg into the dark while holding onto my arm. I couldn’t see what his leg contacted into. I only heard a horrible crunching ripping sound as I watched in horror as his leg kept moving now missing everything below the knee. He had his pants rolled up so his uniform didn’t protect him from whatever cut it off. I knew then I had to let the girl go or else we both were going to die.

I let go of her and I grabbed a hold of him and a second later I felt the sensation of falling. My entire body felt like I was being tossed around even though we were standing still. A sudden crushing force made me collapse to my knees, feeling like I had just been in a car crash. I couldn’t move for a few minutes. When I opened my eyes open, I saw we were back in the dead-end room. The girl was gone. Her bracelet left behind on the floor behind me.

Rufus was in bad shape. A pool of blood started around where his leg had been cut off. His eyes were closed and I feared he was dead. And it was all my fault. I should have just listened to him. My job was to deliver the mail, nothing else. If we finished the job and got out of here, I was certain I would be killed for my poor performance. I only took this damn job because my only other option were thinly veiled threats of death. Rufus opened his eyes looking too weak to even sit up. I sat, waiting for him to yell at me, to blame me for everything.

“I’m sorry I...” I found myself unable to speak through the lump forming in my throat.

“It’s alright. You are only human after all.”

He was smiling at me. I would have much rather him get angry. His kindness cut like a knife in that moment. He reached inside his jacket pocket to bring out the envelope we still had to deliver. All this trouble for such a small thing. All I had to do is take it and knock on the drawn-on door. I felt too weak and so close to tears I nearly couldn't stand. His kind smile encouraged me enough to take it from him and walk over and knocked on the wall. I took a few steps back after I did, terrified over what would happen. After I knocked the fake door turned into a real one. I swung open in its own, a pitch-black room beyond. I clutched the envelope in front of me staring into the darkness, waiting. As seconds slowly crept past, I started to hear a faint sound. A chattering clicking noise that seemed like it was getting closer. I took another step back.

Suddenly the entire door was filled by a massive face slamming against it so hard it cracked the frame around it. I tripped over my own feet screaming and falling hard on my ass. Somehow, I kept the envelope in my hand. My throat closed because I was so scared. I couldn’t make another noise. I couldn’t move I only sat with that thing in front of me. It was a human looking face, so large it took up the entire door. The chattering sound was coming from its mouth opening and snapping shut at a frightening speed. For a moment I almost started to chatter my teeth together with it. It kept pressing, trying to fit its face through. Trying to get to me. Teeth noisily coming towards me inch by inch. I don’t know where I got the courage from. I stood up, legs shaking. Slowly I took a few careful steps closer. The nose was rattling me down to my bones. I held out the envelope as far away from my body as I could muster. I closed my eyes unable to handle seeing such a creature. Both of us inched closer to each other until finally its massive set of teeth closed over the corner of the envelope and stopped.

The silence made me open my eyes. The creature known as Mr. Chatter had finally stopped snapping its mouth. Slowly the red envelope started to burn away. When it was nothing but ash on the ground, the creature opened its mouth again but this time to give out a bellowing awful laugh. And for a lack of a better way to put it, the entire head collapsed in on itself. The mass sucked into a pin point in space so quickly that in a blink of an eye it was gone. The door slammed shut, disappearing so it was just a plain wall again. I had finished the job even if I had no idea what the hell just happened.

A small click made me jump. With relief I saw another door had appeared, this one with a place to swipe my blank card I had received. I knew this was an opening to a Zero room and they way out. The problem was dragging Rufus with me. I couldn’t support his weight, and he couldn’t walk. I turned to look where I had left him, only to see something else in his place.

A dog stood on three legs looking at me. He wore the same jacket Rufus had on and he two light spots in his fur that looked very similar to what Rufus’s eyebrows looked like. He was that Shiba Inu breed everyone online loved. Well, that solved that problem. I knew he could walk out on three legs, but I picked up the dog and pressed my face in its soft fur tears threatening to overtake me.

“I'm sorry.” I told him again truly meaning it. I only got a bark as a reply.

The Zero room looked exactly like the other one. The receptionist did a double take at us. She got up and took Rufus from me looking him over.

“I won a bet with my siblings. They all thought you would have died. Good job finishing the job.”

I was a little shocked that she wasn’t angry at me either. I had nearly gotten her father killed after all.

“Was the other girl your twin?”

It was her turn to look a little surprised. She was dressed in the same clothing as the first girl we met, but there was a kinder air about her. I don’t know how I knew it, but I was certain this girl was a different one from the other I met.

“Something like that. Anyway, you’re done for the day. We’ll send you a message when another job comes in. Now get out.”

She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder and towards the door. The sharp gesture felt like it also jabbed into my chest. I scurried out, Rufus giving a small bark as goodbye. I had never been so thankful being done a day of work. It felt like hours had passed and I was exhausted. I blinked in the morning light and tightened my jacket against the cool air. I had come out of a building different from the one I arrived at earlier. This one was a couple minute walk from my place. I took my phone out to check what day it was only to my confusion saw I had only been gone for two minutes. Everything that had happened only took two minutes real world time.

I’m not proud to admit it, but when I got home, I cried hard than I ever had in my entire life. I don’t think I'm the only one who has cried like that after their first day of work. I truly dread when I’ll get another message for a new job. Even so, I made up my mind to take it. I owe it to my first partner. He gave up his leg for me to survive. To pay him back for it, I had to deliver mail. An odd situation be in. I really only had myself to blame for it though.

 

part 2

 

 

A few weeks passed after my horrible first day of work being a mailman delivering mail to supernatural creatures. I was certain I would be fired after how horribly I did on my first day. I ignored my job description and gotten my partner injured. I expected to have serious ramifications for my actions however, nothing happened. Since that day I was assigned to the sorting room. For eight hours in the day, I went through thousands of colored envelopes placing the right colors in the right place. I wasn’t sure what each color meant aside from the red one needed to be sent out first. I was not allowed to touch any black envelopes I saw. Instead, I would get my supervisor to take them. I only saw three of them while working in the sorting room so far.

I worked with some strange looking creatures. One was a spider creature that barely had any human features. He could sort almost as fast as lighting because of his arms. He only nodded towards me when I said hello to him every day. I was human in a workplace full of monsters. They weren’t treating me as badly as I expected. I got a silent treatment. It was a bit unnerving whenever my supervisor looked at me as if I was a three course meal and he hadn’t eaten for days. My supervisor was a human shaped wrapped in old bandages. Similar to a mummy. His bandages were just sloppy wrapped trying to hide whatever was underneath instead of being wrapped for preservation purposes. White light shone through where his eyes should be. His mouth was exposed showing a mouthful of needle teeth. He drooled a little whenever I spoke to him regarding work. He was nice enough to not address that reaction.

Overall, it wasn’t a bad job. I was starting to think I would be in the sorting room forever. One day I got a message saying I needed to do a delivery job and be at a location at nine the next night. I dreaded going. I also wanted to see if I could get any information about my co-worker Rufus, who lost a leg because of my incompetence. I hadn’t been able to talk to any of my co-workers in the sorting room about it.

The next night I found myself in a room looking pretty much the same as the one I entered for my first job. It looked like an empty office with a pretty receptionist sitting at a fold out table reading a magazine. She looked like the same girl who didn’t greet me the last time. She didn’t even look up at me when I walked over to her table. I pulled out a few packs of gum and placed it on the table for her. That got her attention. I got a smile out of her, that was all. She stashed away her present going back to her reading.

“Knock knock!”

My heart leapt into my throat. Rufus was the type of person to announce his arrival at the same time as knocking. I wanted to see him, but now that it was happening, I dreaded it. The past few weeks I wanted to know if he was alright. I still wasn’t emotionally ready to face someone who had gotten so hurt because of my mistake.

Rufus was a tank of a man with dog ears and a cute curved tail I hated because it did not match his tough guy image. His kind personality didn’t match his image either. He came out of a door from the other side of the room. Ignoring my clear distressed emotional state, he scooped me up into a big hug. I’m convinced it I wasn’t wearing the magic mailman uniform that protected me from damage I would have been crushed. His smiling face finally put me at ease after weeks of stress.

His pants legs were rolled up. The leg he had lost had been replaced with another looking very similar to his original dog like leg. The replacement had black fur instead of the sandy brown. He had wrappings around his knee. By how slowly he walked compared to before it seemed like Rufus wasn’t fully healed up just yet.

“I'm really glad you’re doing alright. I’ve been worried I would get fired because of what happened....” I admitted to him.

“Fired? What no! You’re doing fine!” Rufus said with a wide smile that made me feel only slightly better.

“Your leg got torn off on my first day.” I said still not being able to get over that fact.

“Well, yes. That isn’t great...” He admitted sounding almost guilty for a moment. “Don’t worry about it. This sort of thing happens. I’m fine and unlike for you humans, legs can easily be replaced. I just wanted to drop by and introduce you to your partner for this job. If you get along, you’ll be partners for a while.”

I don’t know what I expected partner wise. It could literally be anything. And I mean anything. I saw a pile of mushrooms walking around the sorting room once. I was pleasantly surprised by a man looking to be around my age and very similar to Rufus. His personality was as friendly as my pervious partner.

“Hi-Ho!” My new partner came in the room the same door Rufus arrived from.

He walked across to me, taking my hand to shake it in the same greeting my old partner had.

“I’m-” he spouted off a garble of syllables not meant for a human to pronounce as his name. Him and Rufus must be related.

“Max.” The receptionist finally spoke.

“Oh right, my human name is Max!”

He was at least a foot taller than me, but smaller than Rufus. His dog ears on the top of his head were fairly large compared to his head. I saw paws poking out from his rolled down pants legs. His hand had soft sandy fur covering them. Claws for finger nails. When he shook my hand, I felt small pads on his fingertips making his hands a paw hand hybrid. And yes, he did have a curved tail. It suited him far better than Rufus so I didn’t hate it.

“Max is my son. I suggested him for your partner. I think you would get along. “Rufus explained.

Max looked like he could barely contain his excitement. Him and his father were much different from all the other creatures that only saw me as a meal. I think this would work out just fine.

“Your job is to deliver this to Honored Slithers.” The receptionist told us placing a small cardboard box on the table to take.

Max scooped the box up ready to get started.

“This is going to be an easy job. I hear Honored Slithers hangs out in a park on the human side of things. Not dangerous at all. “Max explained to me.

That made me wonder something that had been rattling inside my brain for a while. As far as I could tell, mail was delivered in teams of two. More if the job was extra dangerous. If it was a simple job, why waste resources and send an extra person? With the last job if Rufus went alone, I was certain he would have done just fine. This sounded like an easy job today. So why even have me go along?

“How come we have teams of two for everything?” I asked.

“Oh! Simple really. Even if we think it’s an easy job, we really can’t predict anything that goes on in the field. Teams of two were far more likely to get the job done, and have one worker return. You know that joke about you don’t need to be faster than the thing chasing you, only faster than the person with you? Ahah... yeah...” Max explained as he trailed off, looking beyond me clearly remembering something unpleasant in his past. “Anyway, let’s get going!”

Max recovered quickly going back to his pleasant self. We both said our goodbyes to Rufus and left the meeting room. The room we had met inside were called Zero rooms. They could be controlled when to appear, and where the entrances and exits went. We went through the door I arrive in, but it no longer was connected to the building I had entered through. We walked out into a damp and dark public bathroom. The stall was the door we came out of. When the door closed it returned to being a normal stall door. I used my phone to get a look around. It wasn’t clean, but not as dirty as other public park bathrooms I’ve seen. The door to the outside was locked. I feared we would be trapped inside until the morning and a park worker came by to let us out. Max made sure that didn’t happen. With one swift kick, the door not only burst out from the hinges but slammed against a tree the metal completely twisted. I’m glad Max was friendly. I never wanted to upset him if a low effort kick could do that much damage.

“I’ll sniff around trying to find a good spot to wait. I don’t know what Honored Slithers smells like. But supernatural creatures are different than humans. I can tell the difference. “Max explained when we got out of the bathroom.

He placed the box we should be delivering on his head between his ears and started to walk with large playful steps. I was utterly mortified that he started to sing the song I had taught Rufus on the last job. He was singing it out of the even if the lyrics were correct. He paused trying to think of the next verse and I jumped in with a question trying to distract him from singing in a dark and empty park.

“How come Slithers has the title of Honored? Is he super important or something?”

Max looked a little confused over my question as if I should know the answer already.

“Honored is just what we use instead of Mr. or Miss because some creatures don’t have a gender. Or they have a gender that hasn’t been named. It’s a sign of respect. We wouldn’t have a job if these creatures weren’t sending mail or receiving it. Mind you, some just use whatever title they like. I’ve come across females that go by Mr. because they like the sound of it. Same for males and the ones without genders. Didn’t you read all of this in the handbook?”

The last part made me stop dead in my tracks. What handbook? No one has ever told me about a handbook. I only received a blank swiped card to get inside the Zero rooms and a pair of uniforms. You would think something this important would have been brought up before now.

“I never got one.” I admitted.

“What? You did a job without a handbook and lived?! Humans are so impressive!!”

Max looked so excited I didn’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t actually do anything on my first job but mess it up. I really needed to look into getting a handbook once we got back.

“I’ll send a message seeing if we could get you one. I would lend you mine but it’s not in your language so you can’t read it. I don’t think anyone of us does have one in a human language. So maybe that’s why you don’t have one yet? The last time we accepted humans was around five hundred years ago. The handbook gets outdated fast so we can’t give you one of those.”

Even if he did, I doubted I could read English from five hundred years ago. And he said a human language. It could be written in anything. I would just go without. Max was friendly enough and he answered any questions I had so far. It wasn’t a big deal until we got a more dangerous job.

We walked through the park Max leading the way. I saw a few people walking home from work but none looked our way. I wondered if they could even see us or if the uniforms had some sort of magic that made us invisible to humans. After all, I really couldn’t explain away Max having a very real set of dog ears and a tail. Max stopped at a bench under a street light. Sniffing the air a few times he sat down. I sat next to him looking around expecting to see anything besides, well, an empty park at night.

“Do we know when Honored Slithers is going to show up?” I asked after a few minutes of listening to Max hum next to me.

“Nope!”

I looked over at him confused. Are we just going to sit there all-night waiting?

“Wait, so we are really just going to sit here and wait? Isn’t there a way to contact them saying the package is ready?” I asked and Max looked like he wasn’t sure he wanted to answer my question.

“Well, no, we don’t really have a way to call others any more. Some creatures that have embraced human culture own those things called... Uh? Phones? We can call them that way. It’s sort of a long answer why creatures like us can’t call each other with our own way.”

“We might be here all night. I’m alright listening.” I said and Max brightened up at my answer.

“There is a what you humans would call a spell to call each other. It had to be broken and no longer used because we accepted humans to deliver messages a while ago. It started out fine working with them, but soon they started to hate us for our nature. Some of us do kill and eat humans. The humans had to watch and do nothing when they saw it while working. No one is really angry at your mistake on your first day. We honestly expected it of you. Anyway, the spell was a written one. You would write the creatures name, then what action you want the spell to take. They figured out how to break down the spell and create a different one. It was used to summon and bind any creature they knew the name of. Those humans only used it for a few days but they had enough time to slaughter thousands of us. I can understand why it happened. But... not all of the ones who are born to the night harm your race. They don’t even interact with anyone. They're completely harmless, however they were killed as well. My father and I have names starting with a letter near the end of our alphabet in our language so that’s why we lived through it. Whew. What a scary time.”

It was a strange feeling hearing Max tell me about humans trying mass killing his species. I really didn’t know what this feeling was. The image of that little girl from my first job came to mind. She had suffered and died, for what? How many humans had suffered because of these supernatural creatures? How many had been killed for no reason aside from something wanting to have some fun? Just how many people suffered never knowing what happened to a person they dearly loved? Max was friendly, so was Rufus. They could have died because of what they were. They didn’t deserve it, but I felt like some creatures that had been slaughtered back then should have been killed. It was such a grey area. I couldn’t decide on a good answer to my feelings. I didn’t want to admit to Max I thought some would be better off dead when to him, they were doing nothing wrong. Those creatures were just eating. It didn’t matter who got hurt.

I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. It was just a message from my father asking if he could borrow money next week. Max looked over at my phone very interested. Any kind of conversation about work got derailed after that. Max didn’t know much about humans. He rarely interacted with them so what he did know was just bits and pieces he could get second hand. I would be getting a huge bill for using so much data that night. It was well worth it. For the rest of the night, I showed him everything I could think of on my phone. He loved videos of dogs and puppies but lost his mind over cats. I don’t think there was another person who loved cats as much as Max did the moment he saw one. The night passed without seeing any other supernatural creature. When the sky started to lighten, we went back to the bathroom and entered the stall where the Zero room door appeared. Dropping the package back off at the receptionist, we were off for the day.

The next two nights went about the same. We got paid for sitting on the bench looking at cute cat videos. I bought snacks for us seeing if Max would like human food. He loved it. It only took three nights of me hanging out with him to forget the distressing truth I learned when I took this job. I was working with creatures of the night and those creatures killed humans. A little bit pass eleven that night, that truth came crashing down around me.

We were eating snacks, looking up more videos when I heard screams and cries for help coming from down the walkway fairly close to us. I bolted to my feet, then froze remembering my last outing. I could not save this woman crying out for help. It went against my job. I could only deliver mail and not interfere in supernatural affairs. I gritted my teeth listening to the cries for a few seconds when Max spoke up.

“Shouldn’t you be doing something?” He asked a mouth full of jerky.

“I can’t save a human from a creature. It goes against my job.” I admitted as my chest started to hurt.

“Yes, that’s right but what’s going on is a human-on-human thing. I can smell it. You can deal with it if it’s two humans fighting.” Max explained.

He didn’t need to tell me twice. I was so panicked and worried I did everything wrong. Max had my phone. I didn’t even think of grabbing it from him before running off. In a few seconds of running towards the sound of the attack I saw a woman being assaulted by a man. He was pulling at her clothing trying to tear at it. She swatted at him, screaming for help. Judging by how she was moving it looked like she had either sprained it twisted her ankle. I didn't stop to think. I just grabbed him, yanking him off of her hoping she would take that chance to run.

The problem was I didn’t have any sort of plan beyond that. I also had never been in a fight before. In a fury the man turned on me. To my horror he pulled a knife from his pocket and swung it at me. I raised my arm to block it expecting some pain. The knife snapped when it hit my sleeve. It was nice to know that the uniforms not only protected me from supernatural threats but also human weapons. Tossing the knife aside he wasted no time. I was forced to the ground. Any punches to my chest also were blocked from the uniform. I tried getting some swings in but I wasn’t very strong. My attacks missed. It was simply useless in a fight. Unable to stop him, the man grabbed a fist sized rock and slammed it against my head a few times. The weak point of my magic uniform is it didn’t protect when wasn’t covered. Pain flooded my head as everything went dark.

I don’t know how long I was out for. Maybe only a few minutes. I came too, head pounding and struggled to sit up. My attacker had turned his attention to the girl again who failed to run away. He wrapped his arms around her waist, trying to drag her deeper into the trees along the trail. When I saw that, my mind went into a blank fury. I never thought I was a violent person. Or even an angry one. I always thought I was a bit of a wimp. Something just snapped. I refused to let another person get hurt because I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. My head was pounding but my body didn’t react to the pain. I just got up and threw myself at the man, prying him off the poor girl once more. I don’t know where the strength came from. I got him on the ground, sat on his chest and just let loose.

I faintly remember hearing crying behind me as I just punched his face with everything my body held. My knuckles got torn and ruined from slamming into his teeth. My head ached and blood from a cut on my forehead poured over one eye stinging it forcing it closed. My arms felt like they were on fire, but I didn’t let myself stop. When I felt like I couldn’t hit him anymore, I pressed my forearm over his neck and pressed down.

I was positive I would have killed him if I didn’t feel a soft touch on my shoulder snapping me from my crazed state. I felt something take me from under my arms and lift me off and to the side. What had stopped me from my attempted murder was a creature I assumed was Slithers. It was made of inky black wiggling tubes that shone like oil. Two orbs of flaming white light hovered where it’s face should be. Seeing the monster snapped me back to a reasonable state of mind. I sat on the ground, panting completely worn to the bone.

Without warning my stomach hitched and I puked up all the snacks I had eaten that night, thankfully off to the side and not on my uniform.

I heard Max arrive. He sat next to the shocked girl I had tried hard to save. He tried to calm her down. She just kept crying. I didn’t blame her. The entire thing was a shock to any normal person she didn’t need another of seeing a squirming creature. Max left her to walk up to the monster that had stopped my assault and handed it the box. He then took out a sheet of paper to get the monster to sign it. It just pressed the bottom leaving a black spot as a signature.

Then, to my horror Slithers took the beaten and blood man into its squirming tubes of black. I heard sickening crunching sound and I knew that man was dead. I thought I had used up everything I had. When Slithers turned and started to move towards the girl, my body found the strength to stand up putting myself between them.

There were a few tense seconds of a show down between us before Max broke it up.

“It’s fine! He won’t hurt her. Honored Slithers is a scavenger. They only eat the dead or the near dead. I think they hung out here because that man you attacked was killing humans in this park and Honored Slithers just cleaned up the mess. ” Max explained.

I felt my stomach turn again and I had to turn away to dry heave. I felt sick down to my bones. If I didn’t attack that man so badly, he would be alive. I was the reason why a man was dead. If I just had him arrested, we might learn how many girls he had killed. And Slithers ate them. And now the murder. There would be no evidence of the crimes. Families would never know what happened to those poor girls all because I couldn’t control myself. I was just as bad, if not worse than the monsters I had been judging.

Through tears and dry heaving, I watched as Slithers opened the box Max deliver to him. Inside was an old My Little Pony toy. One from the original show. It looked to be in good shape. The fake gems glittering dully in the dim light. None of us was expecting the toy and none of us was expecting Slithers to go over to the poor traumatized girl handing it to her.

We did not have time to question the action. I heard voices and saw a flashlight beam.

“Cops! Book it!”

Max yelled and all three of us moved at once. He took off running, then had to double back to grab me because I was not as fast as he was. Slithers frantically looked around and made a mad dash off into the trees. We left that poor girl with the strangest story, and a cute toy.

I expected once again to be written up for my actions. I only got an eyebrow from our receptionist, then got sent on my way. Because it was a human-on-human interaction she didn’t care nor offer me any medical treatment. I received notice for another delivery job two days from then in the morning.

I got myself cleaned up the best I could. In feared going into the doctor to get my head checked out. I didn’t want them to press me to report what had happened to the police because it was clear I had been in a fight. I could just hoped I didn’t have a concussion.

Our next delivery job sounded simple. It was a large sword wrapped in Christmas paper. It was so large I couldn’t lift it. Max easily took it carrying it as if it weighed nothing.

We sat in front of a convenience store waiting for a creature to pick up the package. Max could tell I was feeling down but wasn’t well versed in humans enough to figure out how to cheer me up.

It was the time of year when the night was chilly but the days got hot. Sitting out front the sun started to rise so did the temperature. I thought I would feel hotter wearing a jacket as part as my uniform but wasn't too uncomfortable in the sun. I still bought us both a Popsicle from the store. A chocolate one for myself, and an orange one for Max.

I sat turning over the last job over in my head. I hated the idea of victims never being found because of my actions. But that would only be the case if Slithers actually ate them. I learned that the ones receiving packages could request a certain set of workers for the job. It helped keep certain races away from others if the mail company wasn’t aware of a biased. I felt as if Slithers saw what was happening in that park and couldn’t stop it. They ordered something when they heard a human was working for the mail delivery. They may have hoped I saw the man attacking a girl and put a stop to it.

That was just hopeful thinking on my part. Aside from Slithers giving the girl the pony toy, I had no proof there was any kind of kindness in the pile of squirming shapes. Slithers was a supernatural creature and it was in its nature to eat humans. Putting an end to a serial killer in the park would remove the food source. It was not in their best interest to have it stop.

“Max... If I wasn’t there, would you have saved her?” I asked him finally breaking out of my thoughts.

“No.” He answered honestly.

I didn’t blame him. She was not of his species. Not his job. Not his world. Not his problem.

I had finished my Popsicle and saw writing on the stick. It said I won a free one and I didn’t think they still ran that sort of promotion. Without a second thought I started to turn and offer it to Max.

I really didn’t have any proof to support my theory that there was some good monster out there. Yes, some did kill people without a second thought. Monster lurked in the darkness of the night waiting. But there might be some kind creatures too.

At the same time, Max turned towards me Popsicle stick in hand. He had also won a free treat. At the same time, we both had offered it to each other causing us to laugh when we realized what we had done.

 

part 3

 

Because of a very embarrassing event I do not wish to even think about, let alone write down, I became a mailman that worked with cryptids. My first job was a rocky one and I ended up being the reason why my partner lost his leg. He not only forgave me for what happened but he trusted his son, Max, to be my next delivery partner.

It was a pretty good fit. Max had an endless amount of energy and answered my many questions the best he could. I still did not have a handbook to explain the rules of my new job and the culture of the world I had been thrown into. Even after a few delivery jobs I didn’t have a good grasp on the creatures around me. Max did answer my questions, but he easily got distracted because he was equally in the dark about human culture. While we did our job, I often ended up talking about how the human world operated and totally forget to ask him questions. I carried a notebook tucked inside my uniform jacket pocket but only filled a few pages of what I had learned so far.

We finished a few delivery jobs together. Aside from the disaster the first and second job had been, we were doing pretty well. I assumed we got easy jobs because I was human. Being human made me lack certain skills needed for this job. Still, I tried my best even if most jobs really was just sitting around we knew our client frequented to hand over a package or letter.

I was ready to do another shift in the sorting room but saw I received a text about a delivery job and the door location. Every time it was a different building but the doors all lead to the same room. I would find the panel beside the locked entrance to swipe my blank card to get inside a Zero room. Those rooms as far as I knew, existed out of time and space. They looked like an empty office and could be controlled when and where to appear. They were used for use to meet the cold, yet pretty receptionist to give us our job task for the shift. For once, I arrived after Max.

He was holding two bags of chocolates, a wide smile on his face. I’ve rarely seen him this excited. He was always in high spirits but today he was bouncing on his heels. His clawed feet scraping the carpet.

“We have an easy job today!” He explained and couldn’t stop from wagging his tail a little.

Yes, Max did have a tail. He also had large fluffy ears that blended into his sandy brown hair on top of his head. His eyes nearly glowed because of how bright of a yellow tone he had been gifted with. Each time he smiled large teeth made me a little bit nervous. Clawed furred hands had accidentally cut mine a few times when he handed me things in the past. I was never mad about it. It’s not his fault his nails were so sharp and grew back every time he tried to trim them for my sake. When I first shook his hand, I felt small pads on his fingertips much like dog paws. I’ve wanted to touch them again ever since, but wasn’t sure if that was an offensive request.

“Haven’t we always had easy jobs?” I asked raising an eyebrow.

Any time we had problems on a job was because I let my emotions get the better of me. I knew if Max, or Rufus, my first partner, worked without me they would have had no issues. It wasn’t as if we had been sent into overly dangerous areas, and the creatures we delivered items for wouldn’t attack us because of the no shooting the messenger rule. Although it was very unnerving being treating like food by all of our clients and all of my co-workers. I know if Max didn’t work with me, he would have no issues eating me. I still liked him as a person but that fact still made me a little nervous.

“This one is going to be super easy. Like a few minutes tops! And there is a surprise after too! Let's get going!”

I barely had time to drop off the packs of gum to the receptionist sitting at the table. It had become a habit of mine. Sure, she never really talked to me or gave me that many friendly looks but I thought her job must be boring and getting some gifts might brighten up her day. Max had taken my arm to drag me to the door on the other side of the room, pushing me through.

Where we ended up was in the middle of hiking trail. Normally the doors to the delivery location came from already existing doors in the area. If there wasn’t any, a door just appeared until we closed it. The trail was dark and I wisely brought a flashlight. In the past I had drained my phone batteries on delivery jobs. Max was naturally faster than me. He would walk a few paces in front of me, stop and wait, then keep going. It felt like a video game escort missing but I was the slow NPC everyone hated. I really didn’t know why they needed me on these jobs. Maybe it was just for the learning experience? I wasn’t helping most of the time and sometimes just made things worst.

Max stopped on the trail and crouched down. I joined him, seeing nothing special. Just dirt and grass. I waited as he sniffed the air double checking we found the right spot. Then, I noticed movement in the grass. Max did too, and opened the bag of chocolate. It was one with small prewrapped assorted pieces. At first, I thought some sort of rodent was moving around in the grass. When I saw what it really was, I knew why Max had been so excited for this job. These tiny creatures were absolutely adorable. If you didn’t mind spiders that is.

I don’t really know the right terms for supernatural creatures. I’ve heard the name Arachne being thrown around for half human half spider monsters but I may be wrong. Because apparently the name also goes with a Greek myth, I was too lazy to read about. Anyway, these things were small. Only four inches tall. The top half of them was human enough. But covered in a soft looking fur and each had different pastel coloring. Even their spider bottom half had fur. They did not look threatening at all even with two large fangs sticking out from their mouths and eight black eyes looking up at us. Very politely, they took a chocolate from Max and scurried off back into the grass. Some even did a little excited dance, tapping all their little feet before leaving.

“What are these things and why are they so cute? This should be illegal.” I said not being able to get over the fact there was such a small and precious monster species.

“They don’t have an English name because you humans can’t see them. You’re only able because it’s your job. Once a month they all gather to get some treats. The postal company covers it because they can get kind of... Well. They like to pull pranks on humans.” Max explained to me.

He handed me a few chocolates so I could give them out to these tiny creatures. In the flashlight beam, their cute pastel pinks and blues were easy to make out. The small furry hand tickled a little when they reached over to grab a chocolate. After seeing dark and nearly heart stopping terrifying monsters the little guys was a very welcomed change. A few minutes passed and I felt something brush against my neck. I thought it was some hair or the tag of my jacket. Max looked over at me, and then reach over at the back of my jacket collar. He plucked one of the furry spiders off from where I had felt it a second ago. Putting it on the ground with its friends, he gave it a treat and sent it on its way. For some reason he reached over to me to zip my jacket up all the way up to my chin. I looked at him rather confused.

“It’s best if you don’t let them go on your neck. They uh...” Max paused in the same way he always paused when he had some sort of bad new to give. “They like to burrow into human skulls. It kills them but somehow, they connect to the brain keeping it alive and the human aware of their body rotting away unable to do anything. We honestly don’t know if they do it for food, or if it’s just fun.”

I dropped all the chocolates in my hands to bring them up to my collar to tighten it closer against my skin. Why couldn’t I just have one nice thing with this damn job? Max, please read the mood here. I didn’t need to know that. I just wanted to think there was just one nice creature out there. But now this cursed fact is in my head making me unable to find these little spiders as cute as before.

After a few minutes we saw less and less of them. We still had a whole other bag of chocolates left to give out. I didn’t know if we had to sit there all night waiting for more to show up. Max did say we only would be a few minutes at this job. When he didn’t see any more of the spiders, he backed up a little to give himself some space on the trail. Using a clawed finger, he drew a perfect circle in the dirt. And I mean perfect. I was impressed but according to my snooping Max was a few hundred-year-old so he had time to practice. Placing the opened second bag in the middle he started to write strange symbols around the circle. I knew supernatural creatures used spells. I never saw them use one, so I thought the spells was just chanting or with wands or something. Max noticed my confusion and stopped to explain what he was doing.

“I don’t think I’ve shown you a written circle spell yet. Most of our spells our circle-based ones. Even humans can use them for summoning and the like, but it’s really rare it happens because you don’t know how to write our language. You also don’t have the same kind of power in your blood for the spell to get energy from so you need to use sacrifices. And you need to draw a perfect circle yourself without the use of tools. Spells are easy for creatures like us because we have always used them. And practice drawing a circle the moment our hands can move. I’ll break down what this one is for.”

Max had told me that hundreds of years ago humans gotten a hold of the knowledge to summon and mass slaughter monsters. Because of that cryptid removed certain spells and didn’t accept humans working until I was hired. I was flattered that he felt safe enough telling me how this spell worked until I realized he only was because he was certain I couldn’t draw a circle let alone the complex writing surrounding it.

“So, the first layer of writing should always have the name of what you’re directing the spell towards. Followed by the action. Because this one is very simple, we’ll only have two layers.” Max explained pointing to the first line of text surrounding the circle. In seconds he scratched in the dirt more of the odd writing however didn’t finish it. “Spells with complex actions against powerful creatures needs a lot of circles, text and sacrifices. This spell is directed towards the little spiders we saw before. They can enter the circle only if they have not eaten chocolate in the past month and can only leave with one piece to keep them from getting greedy. The second layer is to make the chocolate invisible to everything but the spiders, and protected from the elements. This also breaks in a month so we just need to come by and pick up the empty bag.”

I wasn’t expecting this to be so well thought out. I made notes inside my little book I carried with me. As I was writing Max found the old bag from the previous trip and picked it up from a nearly faded circle. This system made it so any late comers would still get their chocolate and one of us didn’t have to stay and wait. Only around twenty minutes passed since arriving. I wasn’t expecting us to be done so soon. A rumbling off in the distance made me glad we weren’t going to stay outside all night.

“I guess we’re done here. Let’s find the door and head back.” I said standing up with a stretch, I doubled checked to make sure no little spiders were handing around on my jacket and near my neck.

“Wait No not yet! This is the best part! We’re close by to a really neat place! I never get this job and I can’t wait to go by and see it!”

Max looked like an excited teen aged girl. I shone my flashlight on him to see his tail wagging away. It was hard to believe he had killed humans before because it was just his culture to do so. He looked far too nice to do any harm.

“As long as we leave before the rain start then lead the way.”

I didn’t have the heart to make him go back after seeing how excited he was. Max left me behind again humming a song I really wished he would forget about. I wasn’t sure what to expect. After all Max wasn’t human so his tastes weren’t predictable. I did not expect for him to stop in front of an old wooden and clearly closed bridge. He waited for me to walk up and posed in front as if I was witnessing the eighth wonder of the world.

“it’s a closed bridge.” I stated the obvious.

“It’s the Red Devil Pass!” Max corrected sounding offended. “For over a hundred years people have claimed to see creatures or the Devil himself on it! Rumor has it, on a full moon if you go over the bridge at midnight you have a chance of your soul being snatched away! It’s not at all true of course.”

“Then why are you all excited?”

Max paused and looked at me. He did not understand why I saw this as just some local legend hot spot and nothing special. I would admit that having a person with dog features claiming a local supernatural rumors to be fake was a bit weird. I really should start asking him if certain cryptids were real or not.

“Oh. Right, you’re human. It’s easy to forget that. It’s well... Huh. How to put this? A spot with such a history holds a certain power, I guess? Creatures like myself can get a thrill just being in the area. Some even absorb all the remaining feelings the rumors leave behind. The longer the history the better. “

That made sense. In my mind I thought of it as someone from the city going to a place with clean air. I understood why Max was so happy for this job. He got to see cute spiders and now he was able to see a supernatural tourist area. More rumbling came threatening a storm.

“Alright. But I do think it’s going to rain so...”

“I’ll just go across the bridge and back. It’ll only take a few minutes. I’ll finally be able to take this area off my list of places to visit.”

I was fine waiting for him. He easily climbed over the waist height boards warning people that the bridge was out of service and dangerous. Honestly the signs looked useless. If anyone really wanted to go on it, they could. But it was be their funeral if the wood gave out under them. I wasn’t worried for Max though. I've seen him kick down a solid metal door with no effort. Even if he fell through to the water below, he would only send up smelling like wet dog. It took a lot to injure him.

I was not prepared when in the middle of the bridge he suddenly stopped his giddy little walk and simply collapsed. I stood holding my flashlight not being able to accept what I just saw. Max never runs out of energy. He never slows down. So why did he just fall over? I didn’t even see any other person, or creature around us. Without thinking I ran to him. I leapt over the boards and onto the creaking wooden bridge. A sudden force on my back slammed me down onto the wood making I creak so loudly I thought it would break.

It was a struggle raising my head. It felt like gravity just suddenly increased around me, pinning me down. My uniform as I understood it was a little bit magical. It protected me from sharp claws and even bullets. But it couldn’t fully protect me from the crushing force pressing down on me. I couldn't move but I had to see if Max was alright. I refused to give into whatever was trying to keep me down.

I raised my head as much as I could to see a figure step onto the bridge near Max. A large dark hand reached down to grab him by the back of his jacket and started to draw him along towards me. He remained limp and my chest hurt seeing him getting dragged like a ragdoll.

It took everything in me to raise my head enough to see what had taken a hold of my friend. Sweat poured down my face and in the dim moonlight I saw the creature. It was massive. The entire body was a black with cracked skin. Different torn fabric hung down its neck covering most of its body in layers. The thing had no head. Just and empty neck with flames spouting out. As it got closer the flames flickered and I thought I saw a shape of a smiling mouth in the dancing flames. Each thudding step made my heart want to stop. Looking at Max again I struggled even more trying to sit up. I wanted to do something. I could not forgive myself if he got hurt. Not after everything that had happened from my last jobs and not after I failed to protect a single person. By some miracle I was able to get up on my elbows before a massive foot came down on my back shoving me down. My lungs felt like they were going to be crushed. If I didn’t have my uniform on, I would have died.

“A human? What a strange sight. Here I am collecting creatures who are attracted to this place and a human is with one?”

The creature's voice was sweet sounding. It was so off putting. I would have preferred a raspy threatening one. Even with the foot forcing me down I summoned enough strength to get my hand off the bridge to reach towards Max. He looked asleep and unharmed, so that was a good sign for now.

“Enough of that.”

The creature lifted a foot and kicked me against the signs so hard they tore free. Again, I was thankful for the uniform protecting me. I still had the wind knocked out of me and couldn’t sit up for at least a minute. I sat gasping trying to get up to see if the creature and Max were still there. I was no match for this thing. I had no special skills or knew any spells to stop it. The one thing I learned from my job was supernatural creatures loved deals. My only hope was I had something this thing wanted more than Max.

“L-let him go.”

My voice was pathetic but those flames look surprised I spoke up.

“He’s not human. If you weren’t working together, he would have no problem killing you. And you want him back?” The monster asked hold Max up by his jacket so his paws dangled off the ground.

“He’s my friend. What can I trade for him?”

I tried to sound as strong as I could. But I wasn’t even able to sit up fully yet. I doubted this creature would want to make a deal with me. It could just kill me and be done with it. I was a mailman and, on the job, I didn’t have to worry about supernatural clients eating me. But the flaw in that was if I wasn't delivering something to the creature, they could kill me and only get a slap on the wrist. Sure, the postal company didn’t like having to hire new workers but if we walked into anothers territory, it was our problem. And this was a big problem. This bastard had been waiting on the bridge for people like Max to show up. I knew creatures ate each other to gain power but Max joked none would go for him because he was so weak. Seeing how strong he was compared to a human made he scared of how strong other monsters out there were. According to all the rules I knew this ambush was valid.

“You’re a human. There is nothing-” The flames stopped flickering as if deep in thought. My entire body felt chilled as I waited for it to speak again. “There is something. This little one isn’t that much of a meal. A certain type of human flesh would do better for me. If you bring me.... let’s say five pounds of virgin human flesh I would give him back safe and sound. You have until sunrise to do so. And it must be given up willingly. So, no threatening someone to hand it over. Now, get going.”

I couldn’t believe this thing was going to make a deal with me. I had recovered enough to stand. Giving one last look at Max and mentally promising I would save him I ran down the trail. My first thought was to find the door we came out of and go to the receptionist telling her about the situation. I hadn’t paid any attention to where we came from and feared I would waste the entire night looking and getting lost looking for the door.

I checked my phone trying to find my location. I had no idea where I was. The door dropped us out in different parts of the country most times. I didn’t know how long the trail was and if I would find any help or a city by sunrise. My phone had no signal. Even on data it refused to load. It might be because I was in the middle of nowhere but also because there was a creature in the area. Max told me that supernatural creatures messed up cellphones if they were around them. Because he was on the weaker end my phone had no issues with him. But whatever was on the bridge behind me was much stronger. I could only stick to the trail hoping to get into some sort of signal range.

My bad luck kept happening. I heard more rumbling of thunder and the sky opened up. In seconds it was pouring down so hard I could barely see in front of me. I dropped my flashlight back on the bridge but I knew I would lose at least one and kept a smaller back up in my pocket. It didn’t help as I kept running down the trail, mud and water splashing against my pants. My socks and shoes soaked in seconds.

The slick mud made me trip. Gracefully sliding along getting a face full of water. I sat up panting about to start running again but my brain finally caught up to my body. I had to calm down and think about this. If I found the door leading back to the Zero room, I didn’t think I would get help to save Max. I doubted the postal company had pounds of human flesh just around ready for a trade. In this rain and with my small light I doubted I would find the door we came through to start with.

If I got to a town then what? I would never be able to convince someone to come with me and just let me cut parts off of them. Even if I did there was no way to really prove they were a virgin or not. Getting someone else up to the bridge was never an option. Deep down I knew from the start what I had to do.

I had to find something sharp. If I could just find an ax or hell, I would settle for a large kitchen knife at that point. The moment I recovered enough, I needed to keep running down the trail until I found a house or a barn.

With a plan in my head and the rain thankfully letting up to a drizzle I started running again. Rufus gave up a leg for me. I was going to return the favor to save his son.

In that moment I thought I was all on my own and no hope of any help showing up. I, literally, ran into a possible solution. In the small beam of my light a dark shape rose from the ground, I didn’t stop in time. Running full speed into it, I tasted a briny liquid slam into my mouth. I backed away spitting trying to get rid of the taste.

“Slithers?!”

I was so shocked I forgot to address he creature as Honored. It didn’t seem to mind. Slithers was a creature made of squirming black snake shaped tubes. It had no face aside from a pair of white burning lights hovering over the wiggling mass that looked like eyes. We met on my second job. I didn’t know much about them aside from it might be soft for human girls. I had no proof on that assumption. I had no idea why Slithers suddenly appeared.

“Max is in trouble! Can you send out a message? We need to get someone here to help him!” I spilled out in a frantic voice.

To my disappointment, Slithers formed two arms, raising them in front of its body and its eyes shook in a clear ‘No'. A burst of rage came to my chest but I calmed down when I remembered how these creatures worked. Most of them did not get involved in others affairs. It wasn’t Slithers place to help out. Still, what were they here? I hadn’t even heard anything about them since that brief delivery job.

“I need a knife, or a blade or something. Can you go and find something like that for me?”

I prayed this would work. If Slithers couldn’t send a message asking for help, maybe they could provide me what I needed. I didn’t know if I they would do it for free though. I may need to make a deal with them for this request. It looked like Slithers was thinking it over. Their eyes darted back and forth and I felt my anxiety rising. I could almost see the exclamation point over Slithers head as a wiggling hand went to their chest.

To my horror, Slithers formed two hands to reach in and pull their chest apart. Keeping the hole open, it dug around to start and pull random items out covered in what looked to be ink. Army helmets, dog tags, rusted guns poured out into a pile as they rooted around looking for something. Slithers was a scavenger. They could only eat the dead or near dead. It made total sense Slither hung around war torn areas. Depending on how old they were, what was pouring out may be from the second or first World War. More modern items such as wallets, keys and glasses came out from the endless pit of the creature’s body. Finally Slithers found what they were looking for. A rusty machete. It looked too dull to be able to cut anything. The thought counted though.

“I don’t think that is going to work.” I told them trying to sound as nice as possible.

I got a wave of their hand. I watched as Slithers took one of their flaming eyes into their palm and placed it over top of the blade’s handle. In seconds the entire blade turned black and no longer rusty tone. I had no idea what had happened but if the blade was a sharp as it looked, it would work. But for what I needed it for I had to make sure it could cut sure and quick. Reading my mind Slithers guided me over to a decent sized rock on the side of the trail. Placing the handle in my hand they held both my wrists so I was holding the blade over the rock. With their guidance the blade came down with no resistance. Zero resistance. It cut even smoother than a hot knife through butter. I looked at the blade amazed that it cut a rock so cleanly in half.

Slithers pulled away and I looked at them my mouth open at a loss for words.

“T-thank you! What do I owe you for this?”

Slithers raised a hand and waved it. I wasn’t sure if that motion meant ‘Oh don’t worry about it,’ or ‘You can pay me back later.’

“I owe you one!” I gave Slithers a wave and started to run back towards the bridge.

I really didn’t know why they would just help me out like that. I was a food source and yet Slithers just appeared to solve my problem. Maybe Slithers was doing this for Max. Saving another creature of the night made more sense than helping a human out. Regardless of the reason I was beyond thankful.

The rain had finished when I got back to the bridge. I stopped on the first wooden plank panting from running so hard. My heart froze in fear when I didn’t see the creature or Max. Creatures always kept their deals. I shouldn’t be so worried. They made worm their way out of some taking advantage of the deal’s wording but I had until sunrise. They should be here. Right when I was about to start panicking the flaming face appeared from the dark bridge as the rest of its body came into view. Max was still being dragged along and I tightened my grip on the handle of my new blade.

“Oh? Now where did you get a blade like that? It's dangerous for humans like you. It can cut nearly anything you really shouldn't’ be playing with that.”

“I’ll give you want you want. In exchange you’ll let Max go free. You won’t hurt him in any way and let him get the hell out of her.

“What an interesting deal. If you can give me the flesh I want, your friend can leave unharmed.”

That sweet voice made my skin crawl. I couldn’t stand hearing it again. I also couldn’t hesitate any longer. If I did, I would lose my nerve. Stripping off my soaking uniform jacket and long sleeve shirt I put the blade under my left at the shoulder. I didn’t know how much a human arm weighed. I really hoped mine was at least five pounds. Since getting this job I started lifting weights but my arms were still on the scrawny side. I counted to three and with one last look at my friend I push the blade upwards.

It didn’t hurt. I must have been in shock. I heard a thump of the severed arm hitting the wood below and a rush of warmth down my side. The blade dropped from my hand. My head became light from the instant blood lost. It was only then I thought I was going to die. If the bleeding wasn’t stopped soon, that would be it. At least I would die without facing the shame of admitting to Max I was dying a virgin. I wish I had someone in my life who could nuke my browser history so my father wouldn’t see it.

I was seconds away from collapsing when I heard a shrill horrible laugh. The creature I had made a deal with was cackling away as if it just seen the funniest thing in its life. At least someone was enjoying this.

“Let me help you out.” It said between laughs.

Its large clawed had burst into flames. I was unable to stop it from pressing it against my bleeding shoulder. I screamed from the flash of white-hot pain. I only lasted a few seconds smelling my own flesh cooking and hearing it sizzle. I passed out thinking I wasn’t ever going to wake up again.

I really wish I hadn’t opened my eyes. Everything felt heavy. It was impossible to sit up for a few minutes. I went from sleeping and waking for a while until I could finally move my head. I was in some sort of medical area that in a way looked like a school nurses offices with a few beds beside each other. Groaning I sat up a little on my pillow trying to make sense of things.

My shoulder was wrapped in some bandages with that strange language Max had used for his circle spells. I expect it to hurt more. I didn’t even see any burn scars. They must have hooked me up with some good magic or drugs to make me feel decent enough after losing an arm.

Someone sat on a chair next to my bed. They didn’t even look up from a book when I moved. I couldn’t read the writing on the cover but based on the illustration it was some sort of trashy romance book. They didn’t look like a doctor or a nurse. I didn’t recognize them and thought we never met before. Their hair was white that faded into a bright red. It flowed over them and touched the floor. I was guessing they were female but it was hard to judge under the bundles of fabrics. When they looked up, I was shocked by just how beautiful of a face that was looking at me. Red eyes watched me for few seconds.

“Nice to see you’re alive. You humans are so fragile.”

I didn’t know who or what this person was. But I felt like I heard the voice before.

“They took away your blade. It’s too important of an item for a human to own. That Slithers creature got in a bit of trouble for creating it, giving it to you and leaving some old trash just sitting in the middle of a hiking trail for any human to find. You should really make it up to them. However, what no one can understand is why you offered up your arm. You had a blade that can cut through nearly anything three times. Why not attack the creature and take your friend back?” The person gave me a blinding smile that made me feel like the world's biggest idiot.

Why didn’t I attack the thing in front of me? I had a weapon and it even said it could cut through anything. I let out a groan pain coming to my temple and my face flushed. Still, even if I did attack it, I was still human. I might not have even be able to get a hit in. Even if I did some monsters didn’t die if you cut them in half. Attacking was an option but sacrificing myself was the safer of ideas.

“It might not have worked...” My voice was weak from my injury and from a very dry throat.

The person beside me let out a loud cackle enjoying my answer.

“Humans are so interesting. I am glad I’ll be able to see what other kind of nonsense you have in store.”

They stood up, towering over me. I still had no clue who they were but I was more worried if Max made it out alright. I didn’t see him in the room.

“Is Max-”

“Your partner is fine. As you have found out our world is based on deals and favors instead of money you humans use. A favor from a more powerful creature is worth more. I promised I would deliver mail for a year in exchange for you to receive an arm. Do not get your hopes up. You shall not be able to feel temperature with this arm, or have any kind of gripe strength. You gave up your left arm. That fact shall always be truth. What can be given to you is something like a very good prosthetic. “

I felt my heart race at those words. I had accepted dying. Now I was being told someone I didn’t know gave up a year of their life to help me out. I didn’t understand why.

“I do appreciate that but... Who are you?”

Instead of being offended they only smiled. A sinister looking smile that made me very uncomfortable.

“Oh, do you recognize me now?”

As they spoke their entire shifted and the image of a beautiful face fell away into flames and a dark figure. The thing from the bridges stood over me as I felt the heat of the flames on my face. I let out a high pitch shriek trying to get far away from the thing. More shrill laughter as the more manageable face form came back.

“Please keep entertaining me human! If you don’t, I may eat up the rest of you. If I could gain such a perfect form from only your arm, think of what I would become if I ate the rest?”

I did not like that idea. My body protested against being alive in the moment. I did not want to let my guard down in front of this monster. I had no choice in the matter. The sudden movement took everything out of me and I passed out again.

I was being treated by the postal company and didn’t see much of Max. Rufus dropped by to check up on me and to tell me Max was just fine. He was forced into a nap on the bridge while I came out of it missing an arm. I was told Max would drop by when he had time. There were a sudden influx of mail delivers so he was needed on the field. Rufus also didn’t want him to see me missing my arm because when Max got upset it was very hard to cheer him up again. I was perfectly fine with that. I didn’t want him to see me worn out and in pain. I was not alright with the fact Rufus let slip. Apparently, I was the talk of the company because I had gone on literally the easiest job and came back nearly dead. Most just thought it amusing but I knew I was never going to live this down.

Replacing on arm on a human wasn’t something they normally had to do, but it worked out. I really didn’t want to know where they got the arm though. As promised, I couldn’t feel hot or cold things. I could barely hold anything in my left hand. I was told f I kept working at it I would gain some strength back. I would never be at 100% again with that hand. Honestly, I was alright with that. Max got out safe. It was well worth the cost of an arm.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to be stuck in the sorting room for a while. Putting me out into the field is just bad luck. I really didn’t want to go out for another delivery job fearing the worst. When I let these fears slip in front of Rufus, he just gave me a beaming smile saying they already had some jobs lined up for me and Max. I know he was trying to comfort me.

Bless him. He tried his best but he wasn’t really helping.

part 4

 

 I really wished my co-workers would start treating me line an adult. I work as a mailman for cryptids and that meant I worked alongside strange supernatural creatures with their own rules and cultures. Every time I felt like I made some progress in understanding their world I would fail, taking a million step back. Due to an injury, I was stuck in the sorting room for a month. It was an easy job of just sorting through the mountain of colored envelopes to place in the right cubby for delivery. The injury was from cutting off my own arm to save my delivery partner. My work provided me a new one that had its issues. Still, it worked well enough. After all the mistakes I made in the past I really didn’t blame them for never letting me go back out in the field but I wished the creatures I worked with stopped treating me like a fragile child. Humans are much weaker, that’s true. However, I did not like the spider creature of a co-worker taking the piles of envelopes from my hands fearing too many of them was far too heavy for my weak human arms.

I was very thankful for not only getting the arm but keeping my job after my constant mistakes. My co-workers still drooled and treated me like a hunk of meat. At the same time, I think if they could they would wrap me up in bubble wrap. After a few days I started to take notice of different creatures in my area. I had a system of sorting to make my job go faster. Still, with their help I found my area being done before the others. Since I was still on the clock, I went over to assist whoever I could find who would have me. Strangely enough with everyone working together we did sort through the all of envelopes on a slow day. I had never seen the backroom empty and sorted before. I don’t think any of them had either.

My suspicions of them seeing me as weak and needed to be treated with extreme care was confirmed by one of the creatures that could speak my language. She was the one who I gave up my arm in exchange for the safe return of Max, my partner. A very beautiful and very tall women that joined the postal service for a year to just mess with me. Under her pretty mask was a terrifying creature I never wanted to see again. She dropped by the sorting room and gave my shoulder a playful shove. She thought it was playful but it could have crushed me if I didn’t make it a habit of wearing my magic uniform that protected me from damage every time I left the house.

“How is the new arm tiny baby man?”

To my horror, she explained that everyone was now calling me the tiny baby human. I couldn’t understand their language and for two weeks, they had been calling me that straight to my face.

“Help me think of a name tiny baby. Should I be Belizas, or Belluz?”

“I think you should be out of my area.”

I gained a bit of confidence in dealing with creatures like her. I found a broom and shoved her away so I could keep sorting. I heard she had been trying to decide on a human name for two weeks. The creatures I worked with had their common name, and then a name humans could pronounce. Most went without a human name because they never needed to speak with one aside from eating them. So, when they needed one, they would either pick a random name, or a word that described their main quality. Some like this annoying woman trying to delay my work, just made up a name they liked the sound of.

By some miracle I received a message that I was needed for a delivery job. I really didn’t think it was best to put me out in the field again but I was dying of embarrassment in the sorting room. I received the message at the start of my sorting shift so I went to the meeting room instead.

The postal company could create rooms that looked like empty office space whenever they needed in order to have a receptionist pass off the job to the ones delivering it. They were called Zero rooms. They could create a doorway to anywhere on the planet to drop the ones doing the job close by the area where they needed to be. I was always a bit annoyed that at the end of the jobs I was never dropped off close by my apartment. I was always a few blocks away. I bet they could drop me right in front of my place after a long day. I never brought it up fearing I would be walking a bit more on the way home the next job.

The receptionists all looked the same. I was trying to keep track of them by slight hair style difference and gum preferences. I thought one of them was named Slein but I wasn’t sure. They all out right refused to answer any personal questions when I had a moment to ask.

When I entered the room, I was tackled to the ground by my partner. We hadn’t seen each other since I lost my arm. Max was a very high spirited person, but I heard when he was feeling down it was a difficult task cheering him up again. I had no idea how he was doing since we last worked together. I let him rant in his language and hug me so tight I thought I would break in half. Realizing he could be hurting me, Max lifted me back onto my feet.

“Let me eat a leg so we’re never separated again.”

Max was holding my shoulders his nose a few inches away from mine. He spoke in such a low tone and with an intense look I knew his request was not even remotely close to a joke. I needed to think of something or else my partner was going to rip my leg off and eat it.

“Maybe my pinky toe when I'm emotionally ready to give it up.”

An unbelievably long and intense moment passed between us as his bright yellow eyes stared into mine. I really didn’t think I was going to get out of that room in one piece. Finally, Max smiled and let go of my shoulders looking like he accepted my offer. His teeth were a sharp reminder that if he wanted too, he could rip my leg off with no issue.

We went over to the receptionist ready to received our job details after I gave her some gum, I stashed away in my jacket pocket for her. She placed a small package on the table and to my shock, gave a look of utter disgust towards it. She barely even looked up at me any time we talked to her. I’d never seen so much emotion on her face before.

“You need to deliver this to Trin in the Maze.”

She pushed the package towards me trying to touch it as little as possible. Normally we would call our clients Miss, Mr., or Honored. I never heard of a creature not having that respect given to them before. Max always scooped up the packages before I could move. This time he didn’t make any motions to touch it. His face was twisted in the same kind of disgust. Like a child who was being forced to eat some bitter vegetables.

“Is this Trin that bad?”

I asked as I grabbed the package to put away in my pocket.

“Well...” They both started at once trying to think of the right words.

“She’s... difficult.” Max said finally after of thinking. “She really likes humans so you’ll have no issues with her.”

Every time I was told an easy job was going to happen, I ended up in a horrible mess. I prayed this would actually be an easy quick delivery. I wanted one job to go smoothly. Maybe if I could deal with a creature none of them wanted to be around, I would get some credit back on my name. Max dragged his feet to the exit. I didn’t think he had it in him to be so down. He always shared the same energetic happiness of the dog he shared some physical features of. Because of my very bad first experience in the Maze, I should be the one dragging my feet. I opened the door expecting to see the same sight the last time I entered the horrible place, but to another surprise I didn’t see the inside of a building beyond the door.

The door opened to a field of golden corn instead. A warm breeze pushed through and I watched clouds drift by on an orange sunset. It was the nicest place we ever arrived in. I knew The Maze changed every time someone entered it, but I wasn’t expecting ten feet tall corn as far as the eye can see. Seeing such a nice sight made me think we really was going to have an easy job.

Then Max started to sneeze beside me. He just wouldn’t stop. His eyes started to water and he backed away from the door nearly tripping over his own paws.

“I can’t.” He sputtered between sneezing.

I knew his sense of smell was better than mine. I wondered what about this field bothered his senses so much.

“I’m allergic. You’ll have to go alone.”

It was a wonder he got the words out between his sudden sneezing fit. It looked like he was suffering from the door just being open. There was no way he could do this job with me. But I couldn’t go alone. No one went alone. It was just proven that it’s safer to go in pairs easy job or not. After all, I lost an arm and we had done the easiest job the postal company had.

“I can’t! Something might-” I started but Max pushed me forward through the door.

“No one else will work with you.” That fact hurt a little. “Let me get something for my allergies. I’ll come after you in an hour.”

Without letting me protest, Max closed the door on me. It remained an office door just in the middle of a cornfield. I knew it was still unlocked and could go back through it if I wanted. Still, Max had faith I would be fine. Most jobs we just sat and waited for our client to show up to pick up their mail. An hour on my own should be fine. I turned away from the door finding a trail in the corn and started to walk. I just needed to keep telling myself I would be fine.

For the first time ever, I didn’t need to wait on a client. Of course, the one time I wanted it to be the case they were waiting for me to arrive. Our clients could literally take any form. Some been so mind numbingly terrifying, I couldn’t even look at them when Max made them sign for their delivery. It’s impossible to know what you are going to meet and could only hope for something you could handle.

After a few minutes of walking the trail ended in an area the corn was cut down in a large circle. A large comfortable chair sat in the middle and the client beside it. The sun hadn’t set yet. The entire area was still bathed in the orange golden light. I almost didn’t notice Trin at first. She was a simple creature and yet still very unnerving to look at.

A faceless mask floated beside the chair with a cloth so sheer it was nearly transparent draped over it. When the wind fluttered the cloth looked like it was pressing against on invisible woman's body. Seeing a blank white mask looking over in my direction triggered my body into flight mode. I’d seen more awful creatures before. I couldn’t explain why that mask got under my skin in the way it did. I just wanted to drop the package and book it out of there.

“Uh. Miss Trin I have-” I stopped speaking to let out a yelp and stumbled back. In a blink of an eye the mask had went from in the middle of the clearing to right in front of my face.

“You little thing. You look tired. Such a hard job. Here have a rest.”

The cloth fluttered as I saw a shaped of a hand taking me by my arm. I was forced into a sitting position and to my confusion into the chair that was in the middle of the circle. I hadn’t walked over and yet I was sitting a few feet from where I arrived. Easy job my ass. Warning bells rang in my head. I needed to get the job done and leave as soon as possible. Trin may like humans but she may like them in all the wrong ways.

“Look at what they have done to your arm! Such a horrible sight. Nothing ever comes from humans being around those sorts of creatures. It’s a pity you did not come sooner. Why don’t you stay here for a while?”

I wanted to speak. I needed to tell her I was just here to drop off her mail. Aside from the constant stress, threats of being killed or eaten and cutting off my own arm my job wasn’t that bad. After all, I could be in customer service. I remember reaching for my pocket for the package trying to finish the job. Then I was simply not there.

I wasn’t a mailman dealing with supernatural creatures. I was back to being a child in the middle of summer vacation. I didn’t know about any scary things that went bump in the night. My only fears of the fact summer may end someday and I would be forced back into school. I heard a voice calling me inside away from my pretend adventures for lunch. Even though it was a hot day my mother had made my favorite. A grilled cheese sandwich with a silly smiling face made of ketchup. I happily ate my lunch, not a care in the world. It was only when I looked over at my mother when I snapped out of whatever dream I entered in. I couldn’t see her face. That was because she had been gone for so many years.

With a pained yelp I shot out of the chair. I collapsed on the ground so exhausted my eyes almost refused to stay open. I sat up on my elbows trying to shake the fog from my mind. What the hell did Trin just do to me?

“You should go back to sleep. Weren’t you having a nice dream?”

I looked up at her blank face disgusted by her.

“My mother is gone. How dare you drag that back up.” I hissed at her my anger keeping me awake. Out of all the creatures I'd come across I disliked her the most for reminding me of the thing that still hurt so much.

“Oh, my poor dear! She may be gone for you now but if you stay you can have her back! You can have a perfectly lovely life with nothing bad ever happening to you. You only need to stay here with me and dream.”

The mask floated down to my level and I felt the cloth brush against my skin. I was so tired the moment arms wrapped around me my body fell limp. I still kept my eyes open, but only barely. I was losing the battle against this monster. I would admit, it did sound tempting. Just dreaming instead of doing my dangerous job.

“I eat the nightmares of humans. All you need to do it sleep. You’re so precious to me. All of the humans under my care are. Don’t worry. You'll have an endless wonderful dream. Just stay here.”

I felt myself relaxing and losing the battle. I so badly just wanted to fall asleep and take her up on that offer. No more threatening co-workers. No more waiting to see if the next delivery job would be my last. I could just stay there and maybe be able to see what my mother's face looked like again. I thought of Max and found a bit more strength to stay awake. I was sure he would understand if I stayed because I would be happy there.

“What would I even dream about? Would I only be a carefree kid or could I see Max and Rufus?”

Yes, they were strange creatures that only on the surface looked partly human. I still didn’t want a life without them. Rufus nearly died for me and Max looked so worried after not seeing each other for a month. We’d become friends. Who cares if we were different species? I felt Trin bristle at my sleepy question.

“No. There is no room in my world for those horrible things. I’ll remove any kind of creature from your mind. You’ll never have to think of them again.”

The arms tightened around me so they no longer felt like a kind embrace but a choking attack. The sudden shift got me back to my senses. Pulling through the mental fog and cotton feeling in my muscles I pushed out of the sheer fabric wrapped around me. Forcing myself away from Trin I suddenly felt like I’d run a marathon. My lung felt close to bursting and my head light. She had offered me a good deal until she revealed she would remove my only real friends I ever made in my life.

“You’re refusing me?” Trin asked, her voice so cold it felt like it cut into me.

“Yes. Now please take your package and sign for it.” I took the small package out from my jacket and the small slip of paper attached to it fluttered.

I didn’t feel very brave sitting on the ground looking up at her. I looked and felt awful but at the same time was a little proud for standing up for myself. I really thought she was going to kill me. It was impossible to read what kind of emotion she had with her blank face. Sweat rolled down my face as I kept the package held out for her until my arm started to tremble and hurt.

“Fine. You’ll come back to me someday. Most do. I still think you’re a precious little thing.”

Cloth shifting, she took the package and out from thin air a fountain pen appeared. She wrote a quick little symbol representing her common name. For some reason, she handed the package back to me after it was signed for. We did not need to return the signed paper. It had spell on it that made the paper disappear off to the records room after the client signed for it.

“I ordered this for you. Once I heard a human was working for the postal company, I requested you to deliver this to me. On the off chance you refused my offer, I found something to help you stay alive until you returned to me.”

I shouldn’t have been that surprised Trin gave me a gift. Creatures such as herself worked off of a favor-based system. Gifts were not a part of their culture but they all saw me as so weak and helpless I found a few of them had started to hand out freebies to keep me alive.

I slowly opened the package expecting a knife or a holy relic. Anything suitable to fight against creatures of the night.

“it’s a flashlight.” I stated the obvious.

“It’s a sunlight.” Trin explained in a patient tone. “After using it you must charge it for a full day in the sun. Two days for the winter. Creatures cannot handle the sun very well. If you turn it on it shall bring out a burst of light so bright it could kill very weak and very lesser creatures. For stronger ones it shall blind them letting you get away.”

Well, that was useful. I wish I owned this a month ago. I needed to remember to be careful using it around Max. I was sure this thing would blind him too.

“Thank you.” I said standing up suddenly feeling a little embarrassed by her kindness.

“You could repay me by staying.”

“I think I hear my partner calling for me. I need to go.”

It wasn’t the most graceful way to leave a conversation but it was the only idea I got. I wasn’t stopped as I walked across the clearing.

“You can also repay me by staying alive. Humans that encounter supernatural creatures nearly always die by them. I fear you don’t have a lot of time left. Please make the right choice and come back to me.”

I paused at the edge of the trail to look over my shoulder at her. I wondered how many humans she’d taken under her spell. If she had some sleeping right as we spoke. If it was their choice, I guessed it was fine. She wasn't as cruel as other monsters I came across. People were waiting for me to return. I felt like taking her up on her endless dream offer would be selfish on my part. I would stick with my awful job because I was doing it together with a friend.

“I won’t die any time soon. I have a pinky promise to keep.”

I could have sworn her blank mask held a confused expression for a few seconds as I walked away leaving her behind.

I had no idea how long I had been gone for. I found the door back to the Zero room easy enough. I couldn’t have been gone for too long because Max hadn’t met me on the trail. When I entered the room, he looked like he was about to charge in after me. Seeing me come out the door he froze. I didn’t know why he stopped. I closed the door behind me, ready to tell him I finished the job. I saw another new expression on his face when he saw me. He looked close to tears.

“You came back.” He said trying to be strong and not break down crying.

I knew why he had that reaction. Trin had a very good offer. I bet he was certain I would ditch him for her.

“Max, I cut off my own arm to save you. Of course, I would come back.” It was meant as a joke but the receptionist looked like she was going to murder me.

Max looked from between her, then to me, then back to her.

“We hadn’t told him that yet.” She hissed at me.

Oh no. I wish they would have made me aware of that fact. I couldn’t even try and fix my blunder. Max burst out into a fit of tears grabbing a hold of me sobbing how sorry he was that I got hurt because of him. Even though he wasn’t entirely sure what happened that night or why I removed the arm for his sake. I knew Max could kick a person in half if he wanted. It was a bit strange to see someone I viewed to be so upbeat and strong freely crying. It was so out of character for him I froze up.

I’d heard scraps of information while working in the sorting room about Max. He went from partner to partner. The other creatures not being able to handle his personality being so much like a human. I also heard that five hundred years ago when a mass of creatures was hunted down and killed by humans gaining access to some spell, he lost his entire family aside from his father. And he once had a huge family. I think Rufus had a lot of children since then, but the mental scars of losing so many important people still lingered in them.

The receptionist looked annoyed at her sobbing older brother. I didn’t mind it. I let him cry and soak my uniform jacket.

My job was dangerous. My co-workers saw me as a meal. They were mostly creatures of nightmares and we delivered mail to other nightmare creatures. Any wrong step could cost me my life, or the life of my delivery partner. And in some cases, just dying was the best outcome. Even so, I would stick with this job.

I had made some first real friends of my life. Max would always have my back. Rufus would gladly adopt me if I let him. And even the very annoying and very frightening witch of a women that made me cut off my arm to eat was worth sticking around for. I hope Trin wasn’t really waiting on me because I don’t think I’ll ever go to her.

part 5

 

For the past few months, I’ve been able to adjust to my job. My delivery partner was a major stabilizing factor. It was hard to be stressed about other co-workers looking at me as if I was a meal when Max was literally a big puppy I could spend my work hours with.

Sure, I did lose an arm and had it replaced with one that slowly was starting to ache all day, but it was worth trading an arm to keep Max around. I didn’t even hold much of a grudge against the creature that made me cut the arm off in the first place. So far, I did not overly regret being forced into my dangerous job of delivering mail to monsters.

I came into work feeling ready to get going for a change. I would get texts of door locations to go to and swipe my blank card to get inside what was called a Zero room. They looked like an empty office with a fold out table in the middle and a receptionist. I learned that the receptionists were one of Max’s many step sisters. I have yet to learn all their names or even knew just how many he had. Most were pretty frosty personality wise, but warmed up a little when I slide them a pack or two of gum. They were in charge of giving us the package and details of our deliver jobs.

Max was already inside the room and smiled at me when he saw me walk in. He had large dog ears he yet to fully grow into. If it wasn’t for his mouth full of sharp teeth his smile would be charming.

“We have a good job today!” He told me excited and unable to hid his wagging tail.

Max always said we had a good job. The last one we nearly died of heat stroke waiting on the side of a desert highway waiting for a large slug like creature to show up and pick up it’s package. That was a rough one. I made Max spit out so many small lizards he tried eating the moment I turned my back.

After doing the him exchange Max’s sister gestured towards six tote bags filled with letters and packages on the floor. My heart sank. It would take forever to go out and deliver these. Normally we only did a trip per package.

“It’s all going to the same place.” Silen told me reading my expression, At least I was fairly sure that receptionist was Silen.

“We get to go see all the girls today!” Max explained and started to pick up the totes to hang off his shoulders.

He was shorter than me by a little but very strong. I could only carry two of the totes, my bad shoulder unable to support the weight of a third. Max easily took it and carried the rest. I still felt back that I make him do extra work the time and after all these months couldn’t help out more. Max didn’t even notice my inner turmoil. He gave his sister a wave and I followed him out the door being weighed down.

He needed to keep stopping to wait for me to catch up. He knew better to take over and let me do my best trying to carry the heavy bags. The sun was setting and we walked towards a building that when I saw the sign, I paused a little confused. Surely, we weren’t dropping off all this mail at a strip joint?

My face red from embarrassment and the weight of the bags, I tried to catch up to Max. I didn’t make it in time. He knocked on the back door of the building and was let inside. Seconds before I reached the door, I heard shrieking screams. I was so worried Max walking into something he shouldn’t have I wasn’t thinking. I just barged into the back door and into one of the weirdest scenes of my life.

The door opened into an employee dressing area. It felt like it was poor planning that someone walking inside could see the girls getting ready. Max was surrounded by women all different species and all in different stages of undress. My face turned completely red and I did my very best not to look at anything I felt like I was not meant to see.

Until that moment, Max never really showed any interest in girls before. He treated everyone with the same bright and kind bubbly personality. So, I was shocked to see him in the middle of the women looking like he was very much enjoying himself as they all spoke in a mixture of languages. Then I realized he wasn’t enjoying himself because a lot of attractive girls was fawning over him. He was smiling away and wagging his tail because a bunch of people were petting his head and touching his paw like hands.

I felt jealous. For months I wanted to touch the soft pads on Max’s hands but didn’t fearing I would be dragged into a work sensitivity training program. I suffered being unable to touch the beans and all these girls just were going at it.

I knew that it would take a while for them to all settle down and I stepped aside trying to find a spot to put the tote bags to be sorted through later. When I looked up, I was staring at a face I never thought I would see again. We both stared at each other, frozen, the sounds of the other girls chattering around us.

“Vicky?” I asked finally.

She came towards me, looking like she was about to rip me to pieces. Before she could reach me, a different women came over between us. She was tall and had a slit mouth that went from ear to ear. Aside from that, she was rather pretty.

“Oh? I've heard a human was delivering mail. Vixen, do you know it? You talk to humans.” The women asked, mouth in a wide smile.

“We talked a few times on a dating site but never met. Right Toby? We never met. Right.” Vicky’s tone was very clear on what she wanted me to say.

I nodded, a little nervous on what would happen if I said otherwise. Vicky was the reason why I got my job. She was a monster that would eat men she went on dates with. We did meet through a dating sight, but I was spared. She could only eat certain types of men it seemed. She still tried to kill me, but I was lucky enough to, literally, run into the Silver King. Sure, she tried to eat me but I’ve forgiven her for that. If I held a grudge against everything that have tried, I wouldn't have any friends left.

“Vera, why don’t you help Max get the mail out to everyone?” Vicky suggested.

The tall women smiled and nodded. She pushed her way through the crowd and soon the girls were getting back on task, Max was still in the middle getting mail together and making them sign a sheet once he handed them their packages. He was chattering in different languages I’ve never heard him use before. Vicky and myself stood awkwardly off to the side.

“I'm kinda useless here huh.” I commented watching Max work.

“Mostly yeah. But I think it’s alright. Max had been delivering our mail for years. He's ideal because he’s friendly and knows a lot languages. But he’s always switching partners. His personality is so close to a human it’s off putting to creatures of the night. It’s... It’s good that he’s working with you...” Vicky told me, looking as awkward as I felt.

I had no idea Max switched partners so often. Herr I thought everyone loved him. It made sense. Him and Rufus, his father, were much different that all the creature’s I’ve come across so far. At first Vicky felt like she was similar to them. But then, she chased me through the woods trying to kill me.

Max came over to retrieve the last few bags and took my hand.

“Come meet all the girls.”

I was dragged forwards and shoved in the same spot Max was minutes before. I had a gaggle of supernatural females prodding me and pinching my cheeks. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Max was trying to introduce me to them all. But some didn’t have human names. In the future I may remember how their names sounded but would find it impossible to pronounce. At least they were friendly and only a few looked as if they were seconds away from taking a bite out of me.

A man came peeking into the room and said something I didn’t understand. The girls started to disperse to get fully dressed. I got some quick kisses on my cheeks, but felt as if it was in the same way you would kiss a cute animal. In the chaos Vicky was getting her mail from Max.

“Do you work here?” I asked her and Vicky stared daggers at me.

“Do I look like I work here?” She hissed.

I felt my blood turn cold knowing I asked the wrong question.

“Below are apartments for female creatures only. I live here dufus.”

She was being a bit grumpy with me. I imagine I would be the last person she ever wanted to see again considering how our date ended. Unable to read the room, Max came in with a save.

“Let's all go out on a date.”

We both did a double take at his suggestion. Max didn’t know a lot about human culture but I thought he knew what a date was.

“Do you mean you want us all to go out for dinner?” Vicky corrected.

“Yeah! You told me about a place the makes breakfast stuff all day the last time I brought mail. I’ve never had breakfast before.” He said, his curved tail wagging showing how excited he was over the idea.

“That’s just going out for dinner Max. It's not a date.” I told him but he didn’t even falter in his logic.

“People who like each other going out is a date! And we all like each other so let’s go.”

He took out hands and started to drag us towards the door. Normally we would check back into the Zero room to say we completed a job. Sometimes we would get a few more jobs to do, and sometimes we could just head home. I was starting to think Max got away with a lot of things because his entire family worked at the mail company. And because he was cute. That helped a lot.

“I didn’t want to go out with this guy I was meeting tonight anyway. I’ll send him a message canceling on him and Toby can pay for my dinner.” Vicky said as if she wasn’t already planning on going with us the moment Max suggested.

Max didn’t have any human currency, so I was glad my job at least paid well. The all-day breakfast diner was a quick walk away. It must do good business being surrounded by bars so the drunks could get some greasy eggs before heading home.

It was pretty empty when we arrived. Max sat next to me in a booth and Vicky was across from us. She was texting someone and had her head down when the waitress came by with the menus. I’ve been working with Max for a few months, and yet I’ve never gotten a clear answer about how other people saw him. He did have dog features. Could humans see his ears and just assume they were fake? Or did they see him as a normal person? I had a lot of questions but when Vicky put her phone down, I suddenly was unable to speak.

She was a very pretty girl. Long red hair she styled in flowing waves since the last time I’d see her. When she smiled, she had hints of dimples and her clothing always seemed to fit in just the right way. Almost any guy could easily be lured in by her looks. She was the best looking girl I’ve ever spent time with. But I felt no attraction towards her. I remembered what she truly looked like. Every time I looked at her, I felt the memory of her hot breath on the back of my neck she was just about to crush me in her massive jaws.

Max didn’t notice how tense I was or how awkward the air turned. He reached over and took a hold of one of the small syrup jugs and opened it a few times. He snickered. There was two of them and the spout looked like a bird's face.

“These look like Chook-Chooks.” he said opening and closing the jug.

“Oh, they really do.” Vicky reached over and started to do the same. I had no idea what they were talking about but they looked like they were enjoying an inside joke. In a squawking voice she spoke while making the jug look like it was talking. “The thousand-year Pitch War? Never heard of it! Never started it!”

Her and Max cackled at something I would never really understand without at least a few hundred years of supernatural creature history for context. They both started to squawk and talk about a war I had no idea about before I needed to get them settled down.

“Alright you two, pick out what you want. Max you can try anything you like.” I told him full well knowing I would regret those words.

Max looked at me, eyes shining and started to go over a menu we were sharing. He would read something out loud and asked me about it. There was a few things Max couldn’t eat, like grapes or onions, so I needed to keep an eye on what human foods he ordered. He was reading the menu just fine and I was impressed by the fact that English wasn’t his first language. He must be pretty smart if he could learn so many, even if he proved otherwise sometimes.

When we ordered, Max pointed to what he wanted and I told the waitress. Vicky ordered two large meal combos and our waitress raised an eyebrow over the sheer amount of food. Regardless, she wrote everything down and was on her way.

“So, Toby what have you been up too?” Vicky asked and sipped on the coffee she ordered.

I started to tell her of everything that had happened so far with my new job with Max helping me with some details. She, like most people, gave me a dirty look when she found out I was the one who was responsible for Rufus losing a leg and being out of the field for a while. Apparently, he was very popular and a few creatures wanted some payback. I needed to be careful of where I showed my face in the future.

When our food arrived it nearly all didn’t fit on the table. I only ordered some fried eggs, bacon and some toast. I was done eating way before the other two. Vicky was good at taking over my job of making sure Max didn’t eat some grapes that had been mixed in with his other fresh fruit. When I was finished eating, I snatched away some home fries that was mixed together with some onions. The potatoes were big enough to separate and give back to Max, who was shoving waffles into his face and didn’t even notice our rescue efforts.

Oddly enough, after chatting with Vicky my weariness of her eased. I thought it would take more time to no longer be so afraid of her. I still wasn’t attracted to her but I no longer felt the urge to bolt whenever I saw her smiling. I really did forgive her, but my body refused to want to stay around something it knew to be a predator.

Overall, it was a nice dinner out that was almost worth the hit to my bank account. Somehow, they both got though the mountain of food. We went up to the front to pay and I left a good tip feeling sorry for whoever needed to collect all our dishes.

“I’m going to the bathroom.” Max announced.

“Ok, but only for five minutes.” I told him. Vicky gave me a look wondering why I was limiting his washroom break time. “He likes to stick his head under those hand dryers. If I don’t tell him a time limit, he’ll do it for hours.”

She nodded, understanding how Max can be. We left, to wait for him outside.

Vicky was getting some texts so she was looking at her phone while she spoke to me.

“Have you been donating blood recently?” She asked.

It was a bit of an odd question to ask out of the blue. I stood looking at her wondering why she would ask. I did in fact donate some in the past few days. After the incident where I lost my arm and the mailing company replaced it, I was outed as still being a virgin. My flesh and blood are highly coveted by creatures of the night. By eating it, or drinking it they can become stronger. Or so I've heard. And I heard it could be used to heal some of my co-workers if they get harmed in the field. I really didn’t mind donating to help out so I started to do it as much as I was able.

“Yes, how did you know?” I asked her wondering if Max told her and I wasn't paying attention.

“A friend of mine was attacked by Hunters and nearly died. She’s never harmed a human before. But you know Hunters, they’ll kill anything not human. Anyway, your blood saved her. She might even be able to grow her horns back. I think she isn’t the only one you’ve saved and I wasn’t sure if anyone thanked you yet.”

She was sounding so kind and honest I didn’t know how to deal with it. I felt my face flush and I looked away from her embarrassed. I didn’t feel as if I’ve done anything worthy of being praised for. Anyone in my position should have done the same. I knew donating my blood was going to help but never thought of just how much before. Without warning Vicky put her phone back into her pocket and leaned over to kiss my cheek. I froze, face red. I shouldn’t have been so shocked. Before the whole trying to eat me thing, Vicky and I got along just fine. She was a nice person. I still wouldn’t date her though.

“God, you're’ such a-” Vicky didn’t finish whatever she was going to say to tease me.

A man around our age I didn’t recognize got out of his car and was walking towards us in a rage. Vicky knew him and her face twisted in a snarl. He stopped a few steps in front of us, so angry he was out of breath. I knew Vicky could handle it, but I still stood between her and the new comer.

“You bitch! After everything you go behind my back and sleep around with this guy! He’s not even that good looking!” The man spat.

I wasn’t hurt by his comment. I knew I wasn’t a catch and the monsters I worked alongside were kind enough not to say so.

“Just because you buy me shit I never asked for doesn’t mean you’re entitled to me or my time! And I’m not sleeping around with Toby! He’s a friend you extreme dumbass!” She shot back, getting out in front of me ready to throw down it needed.

At first, I thought I would need to save this guy from her. Until he angrily brought out a gun and pointed it at the both of us. Even after months of being around monsters, the sight of a gun still made me cold. Because my job was dangerous, we received magic uniforms that could stop claws and bullets. I was wearing mine, still sort of being on the job. But the uniforms only protected what they covered. If he shot me in the face, it was all over. Vicky stopped talking and looked over at me, fear in her eyes.

“Drop your phones and get into the car, now.”

His tone gave no room for arguments. I took my phone covered in the pink case I received for work and dropped it to the ground. I winced as if bounced away. Vicky did the same. She could have ripped this guy apart, but I knew creatures of the night were bound by certain rules when it came to killing humans. She either didn’t want to attack him in a public place, or for some reason, couldn’t fight back at all. Max would be useful to have around. It already was way past five minutes. If I lived, I might have to be angry with him.

We both listened to the man and was led to his car. He made Vicky get into the front, and I sat in the back. My mind was racing trying to think of something to do. I needed to wait until he stopped the car to fight back. I didn’t want to endanger Vicky by risking an accident by attacking the man while he drove. I flexed and gripped my left hand, feeling pain shoot through my entire arm if I gripped my hand too tightly. The replacement arm was pretty weak and with the new pain I couldn’t do much with it. I had no confidence in myself and only prayed Vicky had a plan. Or that Max noticed us missing soon and came to our rescue. I doubted the second option.

We drove in silence for a while. He pulled into a normal looking suburb and forced us inside a house. The entire time he kept the gun on Vicky and had one of her arms in his hand. I walked in front, opening the door as he told me fearing he would hurt her if I didn’t do something. He clearly only planned on taking Vicky and was stressed trying to deal with a second person.

When we got inside the front door, I couldn’t take it any longer. I grabbed a glass bowl off a table by the front door ready to use it as a weapon as the keys and spare change inside it went flying. I swung around aiming for his face, and got foreseeable results. He was much faster and slammed the handgun into my nose. I dropped the bowl, it breaking into thousands of pieces on the ground. He gave my stomach a kick that didn’t hurt but still knocked me over.

I was about to get up to keep fighting when I saw Vicky’s expression. She was silently pleading for me to stay down. I did for her. My face a mass of throbbing pain and nose bleeding. Our kidnapper wasted no time and nearly dragged us both down into his basement.

I let him shove me into a chair and didn’t struggle when he tied my hands behind my back, and my ankles together. I felt sick looking around his basement. It was any creep's dream. A mattress was on the floor with blankets scattered around. He had stacks of blank DVD cases piled around the room and a computer on the floor next to the mattress. It smelled and looked like he lived down here. He only had zip ties left to keep Vicky in check. Securing her wrists, he gave us a few threats before heading up the stairs for whatever reason.

“What’s the plan?” I whispered over to her and tried to struggle free. “Are you going to eat him or something?”

She gave me a disgusted look. I didn’t blame her. Who would ever want to be in the same room as that guy, let alone eat him?

“I can’t kill or eat men who haven’t done anything wrong. This piece of human waste is a virgin. Unlike you, he’s very bitter about it. It was only a matter of time before he snapped like this. I have no idea why he dragged you along.” She replied not bothering to whisper.

“Wait, so what are we going to do? I can’t win against him with a bad arm. Can’t you defend yourself?”

“Bad arm? They didn’t replace it with something good? What a rip off. And no. I can’t. I’m not human and my self-defense is killing. I guess we just let him do something to me so I can bite his head off.”

I was nearly sick at the thought. It wasn’t just the idea of Vicky having that guy put his hands on her in any way, but the casual way she said it. I suddenly wondered how many times she’s been in this situation. Where she lured in dangerous men who hadn’t done anything yet so she let herself become the scapegoat so she can punish them based on her rules. I shook my head, trying to keep my dinner to stay down. No matter what happened, that was not an option.

“No. We’re not letting him touch you. I’ll bite out his throat if I need too.” I tried to sound as tough as a guy tied down could.

“Toby, he’ll kill you. Why bother risking your life when we can go with the easier option?”

“The easier option isn’t the right one. Risking my life is well worth you not having to go through something like that.”

I stared at her, her expression turning into a confused one. She looked at me as if I was crazy. In her eyes, I was. This is how she lived her life, regardless of how she felt about it.

“Are you white knighting me?” She asked, eyebrows still raised.

“What? No! I... maybe. But I don’t mean it like that. You’re my friend. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Her expression changed as we heard our kidnapper make noise above us. He was going to come back any minute and I still didn’t officially have a plan. I was talking a big game but didn’t have any kind of power to back it up. I really wished I didn’t let Max go fool around with the hand dryer. We could really use his help right now. I felt pretty pathetic that I couldn’t even defend myself against a human. It was a miracle that I survived so many months being around creatures of the night if some rope and a chair was enough to get me into a pickle.

The basement door opened and we both looked over at each other not deciding on what to do yet. The man came down the stairs a bag over his shoulder. It looked like he packed in a hurry. He clearly was going to grab Vicky and make a quick getaway leaving what he was going to do with me a mystery for a few seconds. Dropping his bag in front of her, he turned towards me, gun at his side.

“You need to cut your losses and just turn yourself in. You took two people in front of a diner. With all the drunks around I’m sure they have cameras. Save yourself a lot of trouble and just quit while you’re ahead.” I said hoping we were not past the talking stage. We were way beyond the talking stage.

“Oh, you’re trying to order me around huh? You think because you’re a hot Japanese guy you can take my girl and tell me what to do?” He snarled down at me.

“My mother was Korean.” I corrected and it just made his face flush red in rage.

He was beyond any kind of rational thought and have been for a long time. I started to try and pull at the ropes keeping my wrists together but they were far too tight. I felt as if that if I had two working arms, I might have had a chance at over powering this guy. He looked pale and weak from being a basement dweller.

“Since you're calling the shots, I’m going to let you pick what you want to happen. I can do whatever I want with her while you watch, or I can just shoot you in the face and leave with Vicky. What is it going to be?” He threatened, eyes narrowing in hate towards me.

Vicky started to speak at the same time as I did. She was putting on an act pleading for him to not hurt me and how sorry she was that she was out with another guy. I was pulled at the ropes, calling him any kind of vile name I could think of to get him to keep his attention on me. I would much rather get shot in the face than watching a friend getting assaulted without being able to do a damn thing about it. A few minutes passed and the man screamed in frustration. Hands over his ears trying to drown us out. Finally, he fired one shot into the ceiling to shut us up.

We sat, tense waiting for him to act. My stomach twisted in stress. I’d been in a few scary situations before and seen some terrible monsters but I’d never felt so stressed and afraid before. Death was easy. Living through the regret that I couldn’t save a friend was worst.

The gun was pointed at my face and I felt relived and scared at the same time. I didn’t know the extent of Vicky’s rules and thought maybe she could kill murderers as well and not just human trash that forced themselves on girls. The gun was trembling in his hand and he looked like he was going to be sick. The gravity of what he done, and what he was going to do finally hit him. He could either crumple under the pressure or go all in.

My throat tightened and I suddenly couldn’t get air to my lungs. I thought about Max, and how upset he would be to have to get a new partner again. For a brief moment I wondered if it was worth putting him through that to help Vicky.

The gun went off and I thought I was dead. My mind worked slowly. The events of what just happened taking a while to catch up. My ear was burning because the gun was fired so close to my head. At the last second the shot went aside, saving my brains from splattering. My ear rang and I stared in shock at how I was saved. Vicky easily pulled her wrists free. She jumped up from behind the man, her face transformed and twisted. She clamped her jaws on his neck, blood spraying into my face and she moved the gun aside just enough to save me.

With one final crushing twist of her jaws, she let the man fall limp and bloody to the floor. Her face returned to it’s normal pretty version. She noticed my expression of shock and horror and looked as if it was not a normal reaction.

“What?” She asked slightly put out I wasn’t keeping track of what was going on.

“You just... you can’t... You’ll get in trouble again.” I stuttered.

She made short work of my bonds and lifted me out of the chair with one hand. Because I was unable to really do much due to shock, she started to clean the blood from my face.

“Creatures of the night can kill a human if it’s to save a different human. But no one does it because, gross. Who would want to save a human? None of us wants to take advantage of the rule to eat whenever we want because of just... wrong it is for use to meddle in human affairs. If you want to kill each other go for it. So, Toby this is VERY important. You can’t tell anyone I saved you.”

Her tone was low and serious. I looked over at her face that still looked human but it gave me the chills just to look over at her.

“Or else...” I started to ask.

“Or else.” She said not needing to finish the threat.

Nodding, we left the basement and the man behind. She would come back later to dispose of the evidence but right now we needed to find Max and fill him in. Turns out, he found us.

When we came out of the house, Max was walking up the street his hair a mess. He waved at us and caught up. Vicky gave him a very brief explanation of what happened. He didn’t look surprised at all.

“How did you find us?” I asked him finally.

“Your cellphone has a tracking thing.”

I looked at him wondering how that answered the question. I dropped my phone back at the diner. I know I did. Reaching inside my pocket just to double check, I found my phone inside. I pulled it out, very confused on how it got back in there.

“Because you can’t use spells to get in contact with me in case you get lost, they made it so your phone is always in your pocket. It’s pretty immune to damage too.” Max explained. He handed Vicky back her phone that he picked up and she looked at the scratch on the corner of her case then looked at my pink case, jealous. “I tried texting you but I guess with your hands tied up, you couldn’t answer.”

Max was just giving me a lot of new information. Since when did he have a phone? When we first met, he didn’t even know what one was.

“You have a cellphone?”

He pulled one from his pocket to show me. It also had a pink case to match mine.

“I send you messages all the time. But I don’t know how long they take to get through cause you never answer me.”

Vicky was snickering at the both of us. Turns out I’d blocked Max’s number months ago thinking it was a spam number. I didn’t have that many friends that kept in contact with me. Having a random number send me gibberish was an easy thing to mistake for spam. We figured out how to unblock Max from sending me messages. This would be very useful in the future.

“Tonight, was fun. Kinda lame that guy knew where Vicky was going to be and caused all this fuss. I wanted to go to the space money place for that whip cream cup.” Max said when we finally got the phones sorted.

“He mean’s Starbucks for one of those little cups of whip cream they give to dogs.” I explained.

“Puppuccino.” He further corrected.

“You had like five pounds of whip cream on your waffles already.” Vicky said not following along.

“It tastes different in a cup.” We said at the same time.

Max brought up a good point. Aside from the Starbucks thing. How did that man know where Vicky was? If he was stalking her, she surely would know. Suddenly, everything came together in my head with a click I thought those two could hear.

“You used me!” I cried looking at Vicky.

Looking round, Vicky found an empty plastic water bottle on the side of the road. Picking it up she handed it to Max telling him to go play for a bit. He nodded and tossed the bottle. It flew down the street and he went chasing after it. He was fast enough to catch it before it landed and to play fetch with himself. He often did when we got too bored on jobs.

“What are you talking about?” She hissed after Max left.

“You knew this guy was dangerous but couldn’t do anything about it. You must have heard the rumors of a new human working as a mailman and requested us to be the ones delivering the mail today. You knew Max would suggest going out and must have told the guy where we were going. The diner had big windows so he just saw us together the entire time making him more and more pissed off. What I don’t understand is why he never mention seeing Max with us.”

“Max is invisible to humans. It’s because he has those dog ears. Why do you think he makes you order things for him all the time?”

If that was the case then no wonder why our waitress gave us such a strange look after ordering so much food. And finishing it all.

“Why would I bother doing all of that? I could just wait until he gave me a reason to eat him.” She scoffed at my idea.

“Because you were worried that he might not go for you first. You’re a nice person after all and wanted to not risk another girl's safety.”

Vicky stared down at me her face dark and she seemed a bit taller than before. I took a small step back not knowing what I just got myself into.

“Those are all theories without any proof. I suggest you never tell anyone of your silly little thoughts. If you do.”

She grabbed my face with a large clawed hand. Her face remained somewhat normal but her eyes glowed and mouth looked far too large. In a deep growling voice, she leaned in closer crushing my jaw with her hand.

“I’ll figure out a way to rip you apart if you start spreading that nonsense.”

Out of all the things I’ve seen so far, Vicky was near the top of the list of things I did not want to mess with. The water bottle came flying towards us. She reached out and snatched if from the air, not even looking over. The plastic cracking and crumpling in her grip. I knew that would be the sound my bones would make if I didn’t listen to her. I nodded and she let go, my jaw feeling bruised.

Max joined us, unaware of any threats to my life. Vicky left soon after to take care of the mess she left behind in the house. Her face just then and watching her kill a man in front of me would haunt my thoughts for a very long time.

Another haunting image from that night was Max’s disappointed face when we finally found a Starbucks and it was closed.

part 5 

 

 

I’ve started to become adjusted to my strange job. It’s pretty simple when you got down to it. We pick up the mail and deliver it to creatures of the night. Sometimes it leads to some dangerous situations, and other times it’s literally a walk in the park. My partner Max, helped me out a lot. I still didn’t know much about the creatures we came across but Max always seemed to know just what to say. Aside from losing my arm and getting an artificial one that looked real but felt... strange, I didn’t regret taking this job. Well, sometimes I do, but Max’s personality makes me feel better about rough days.

How the system worked is we get the package or letter from the receptionist and locate the creature the mail is meant for. Because most creatures don’t live in a building, we can’t just drop off the package in the area. We must find them and have forms signed saying we delivered the item depending on what the mail is. On occasion, some nearly human creatures that do live in a house or apartment let us drop it in the mailbox. This is very rare and normally we’re chasing down things of nightmares in the night.

I was meant to get a handbook when I first started. But never received one. There were so many creatures of the night out there it was nearly impossible to fill a single book with all the information I would need. Because I didn’t grow up in their world, there was an entire culture I was unaware of. A handbook for creatures that deliver mail would be much shorter than one for a human because they knew more about their world than I did. If any questions came up, Max could answer them. A question that was floating around in my mind finally came to light. I’d asked how the mailing company knew where each creature liked to hang out. Max told me that the creature fills out a form with the help of the mailman detailing where they preferred mail being dropped off. If the creature is seen out of it’s area for too long the mailing company usually gets wind of it and sends a person to ask for a confirmation of address. And that was what our new job task was.

Few a few days our job was tracking down monsters in new locations asking them if the move was temporary and they would rather their mail be delivered there, or stick to the previous spot. It was a simple few jobs but I wanted to write down three of them because we met humans on these jobs. Normally creatures and humans do not interact beyond one hunting the other. I was the only human working as a mailman. So far that hadn’t caused too many problems. All of my co-workers besides Max really didn’t know how to deal with humans making things awkward sometimes. I never expected to see another human be friendly with a creature.

These events all happened on different nights but are very similar in nature.

The first event happened in a park at night. And I nearly died, which isn’t too surprising any more. I was told to keep my eyes open for a man in a suit. Max had to correct himself on the shade. It was a dark red suit and he was slightly color blind. I wasn’t warned about the man being dangerous so I started to walk over to him when I saw a man in a suit under a park light. His back was facing me and he looked normal. Aside from wearing a ugly shade of maroon that is.

“Mr. Trace! May we speak with you?” Max called out in a kind tone.

Because of Max’s dog ears and wagging tail, he won over even the scariest of creatures. When the man in the suit turned to look at us, my body froze in the spot. I was staring into a void of a face. At first, it was just a black area where a face should be. Then, it started to shift into something... Else.

His face was a void in the way space was a void. We think it’s empty and cold but in reality, it’s filled with so many colors and things on such a grand scale our brains can’t even begin to comprehend. His face started to morph into everything and yet nothing. I felt my body seize up from the sight. I was beyond fear and something more primal. I couldn't see anything but the shapes and unknown colors coming from that emptiness. I was faintly aware of Max calling my name and my nose staring to bleed.

It felt like a lifetime I stood expecting those shapes and colors coming towards me. If they ever reached me, I knew that would be it. A fate worse than death. I don’t know who saved me, but someone did by hitting me upside the head hard enough to knock me out.

I woke up, head spinning and feeling sick. I was on the grass and Max placed his jacket under my head for a pillow. Someone I didn’t know sat beside me looking frantic. I attempted to sit up and did not get very far before collapsing back to the ground.

“I'm sorry, I should have warned you about his face. But I didn’t think any humans worked with the mailmen.” The man said looking worried over my condition.

He kept pushing his glasses up on his face as a nervous habit. He looked human and that confused me. Then again, Vicky looked human but she very much wasn’t. I couldn’t imagine the creature that nearly scrambled my brain was friends with a human.

“What's that thing doing hanging out with a college student?” I asked still feeling sick.

“You can tell?” He sounded shocked until he looked at his attire and shoulder bag. “Oh well... it’s a long story.”

“I’m not getting up any time soon. What are they doing? Max and that guy, Mr. Trace, was it?” I didn’t dare sit up just yet to look for them.

“They’re filling out a form, I think. Or just talking. I uh... haven’t yet decided to ask if Trace wants to change his address or not.”

I looked over at him causing my head to pound again. But I could have sworn his face was slightly red and he couldn’t make eye contact with me. I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing. There was no way. I can understand someone, maybe seeing a creature like Max in a positive light but was this guy really crushing on a monster with a void for a face?

“Are... Are you dating?” I asked.

He shook his head, face flushed. But slowly he started to shake his head yes as his hands kept folding over each other in his lap not giving me a clear answer.

“Well, sort of. I think. No. Maybe not. We hang out at the park but I’ve invited him to my place when it’s raining. We haven’t... Well. Nothing. Just hang out.”

I could finally sit up. I looked between him and the man in the suit still under the park light a few feet away. Just looking at him made me dizzy again even if I was just looking at the back of his head. I just didn’t understand how another human could look at his face and come out unharmed.

“How I mean... Does his face not do anything to you?”

My questions made his face turn even redder. He nearly had to hide it in his hands and at first, I didn’t understand why he was so flustered. Then it finally clicked. Oh, that creatures face did in fact do something for him. But instead of fear it went the other way. I assumed he liked Mr. Trace but thought it was because the void didn’t affect him. But he liked that man because of his face.

“Ok, got you. You don’t need to say it if it’s embarrassing.”

He appeared thankful for me willing to drop the whole thing. But at the same time, he had some nagging question I doubted he could ask anyone else.

“Do you think it’s wrong? That I care about him? He's a monster and I know he’s killed people in the past but... I...”

My best friend wasn’t human so I couldn’t judge him. I cared about monsters that killed and eaten humans before. I still saw them as people. I didn’t have any plans on dating one after I found out Vicky wasn’t human though. Being friend s was easy enough be seeing them as romantic partners was impossible for me. Caring about a man with a void for a face must be hard on him.

“No, I don’t really think it’s wrong. He’s not hurting you right? Or forcing you into anything?”

He shook his head so hard his glasses started to fall off. I started to think this might be a one-sided crush but based on how much he seemed to care about the monster I hoped that would change. I still didn’t have an answer for myself on if it was alright for humans and creatures to be together. Or if I was turning my back on my species because I was friendly with creatures that hunted us down. How do you deal with the idea of someone being a ruthless man-eating monster and yet kind at the same time? Do both facts cancel each other out, or are they both true at the same time? I could understand this guy’s struggle having feelings he couldn’t control.

“Besides the whole faceless void thing that melts people's brain, Trace is a really nice guy. He even let me name him...”

Supernatural creatures normally didn’t have names humans could pronounce. They would either pick one based on how it sounded or whatever random name given to them. I learn Max, and his father Rufus was named after the first dogs in the local shelter Max’s half-sister saw listed online. I couldn’t figure out why this man settled on the name Trace though.

“Well...” He started embarrassed again. “His face is black. Like noir. And wasn’t there a detective named Dick Tracey? I don’t know if that was a film noir thing or not. I couldn’t use the first name, and Tracey felt too cute. So, Trace.”

It was a bit of a long way to go, but was fine as long as they both liked it. Max noticed I was awake and waved at me. I gave him a little wave back showing I was feeling better. Mr. Trace was careful not to turn around so I wouldn’t relapse.

“I think... If you love him, it’s fine.” I said finally feeling my face flush a little as well.

It might not be fine if you really thought about it. He was supporting something that might be harming others. It was on the same level as dating a serial killer even after finding the bodies buried in the back yard. I was so torn wondering if I could apply human standards to these creatures. They lived in a different world than humans. We were food and yet, could be co-workers. In this case, I knew I wouldn’t reach a right answer for all these questions. So, I stuck with what I said. If these two were happy, then who cares?

“I think... I want to ask him to move in with me.” He said sounding more sure of himself than before.

I felt oddly proud of them. I needed to stay behind because I was unable to really look in Mr. Trace’s direction without feeling sick again. Max helped them fill out a change of address form and finish up the reason why we even showed up to start with. Judging from the reactions, Mr. Trace said yes.

We made sure they got out of the park safe, even though I doubted much would be able to harm them. I think Max just wanted to take a walk in the park. He often put off going back to the company to declare the job finished for a few minutes.

We watched the pair leave while nervously holding hands. I realized then I’d forgotten to ask the collage student’s name. But I felt that was alright. If we kept delivering mail, we would run into them again.

“What were you two talking about?” Max asked as he started to draw a door with chalk on the sidewalk.

He could create doorway’s back to the mailing company when we finished our job. Because I was human and had no magic powers, I was unable to help with it. I thought about asking Max his opinion on humans dating creatures. And if he saw it happening. But in the end, I wanted to dwell on my own thoughts before adding more to the ideas swimming in my brain.

“Nothing much. What did you and Mr. Trace talk about?”

“He told me about a lot of funny cat videos he saw. His human would show him some on his phone and now I have a lot to look up. But I keep going over my phone limit and the company is getting angry at me for watching so many videos.”

When we first met, Max didn’t know what a phone was. Now he got one because I was his partner. If I got lost on a job I could text Max for help. The cellphone they gave me was magic so it would get lost or run out of battery power. Which was very useful. It was nice to know I didn’t also have unlimited data.

“Does the mailing company have wi-fi? Or where you live maybe has it?” I asked and realized I had no idea where Max’s home was.

“What’s wi-fi?” He paused in making his doorway looking confused.

The rest of the night I explained to him what wi-fi was and how it worked. We got back to the main building of the mailing company. I’d only seen the rooms where we received the mail to deliver and the sorting rooms. Max ran off to get a form for us to fill out requesting the company to get wi-fi. There was a good chance of getting it approved, we just needed a few signatures. Since Max had an unknown number of half-sisters who all wanted to be able to use their phones at work, we filled out the signature area very quickly. I felt pretty accomplished that night.

The second time I ran into a human interacting with some creatures of the night, was a few days after the first. We still were collecting change of addresses from creatures. The past few days had been rough. Creatures tended to be in strange places. I found myself going from deep forests, to underneath bridges to snowy mountains. Dropping by a normal apartment felt like a much-needed normal sight.

It was late at night when we climbed the stairs to the apartment. It was on the end and the building was set up so the doors opened to an open-air stone balcony. The door we stopped in front of was the very last on the row. Max knocked softly knowing humans slept at night and didn’t want to wake anyone. I yawned feeling the past few days catching up to me.

The door opened and for some odd reason I was expecting a human and well, not a bee. He was tall and needed to bend under the door frame to greet us. His face was pretty much the same as a bumblebee’s. His body was human shaped though. He was professionally dressed, wearing a vest and dress pants that cost more than my monthly rent. His hands were covered in white gloves, but a set of small arms coming from his back did not have gloves on. Without the gloves, I could see his shiny black hands that looked like it has joint similar to a ball jointed doll. If he could wear a tie, he would. Instead, around his neck was a ring of fluffy fur that appeared to be like black clouds. I desperately wanted to touch it but remained professional.

“Sorry for coming so late. I know your human friend may not enjoy being woken up.” Max said after accepting a hand shake.

“Now, it’s fine. We know how the company works. Come inside please.”

Now, I did expect the creature’s voice to has some quirk to it. Like added extra sounds or pronounce his S’s strangely. But he just sounded British. We followed behind into a narrow hallway. A T.V was on inside. I looked around feeling the warm apartment air on my cold face. It was a bit of an odd feeling being in a stranger's apartment in the middle of the night. As we walked further inside the hallway opened up to a kitchen area on one side, and a living room on the other. On the couch was a person sharing a blanket with another bee creature sleeping on the floor. I looked away from them feeling guilty for staring at someone who was sleeping in their own place. Like I was invading their privacy.

We sat down at the kitchen table and Max brought out the forms. From the living room, the other creature stood and joined us in the kitchen. He was dressed in an oversized shirt and sweatpants. He scratched at his stomach under his shirt and walked by the table to start making coffee.

“it’s nice to meet you Mr. Bumble Burns. Your hive’s honey has always been my favorite but it sells out so fast I haven’t had it in years.” Max was keeping his voice down aware of the other person sleeping.

He was wagging his tail showing how happy he was to meet these two bee creatures. The second one making coffee was smaller and had a darker orange coloring instead of the pale-yellow Bumble Burns did. I wondered if they were related. They were the same species but didn’t look too much alike.

“I wouldn’t mind trying some honey your kind makes.” I commented and Max stopped wagging his tail.

I thought I stepped on a landmine from all their reactions. Even the other bee stopped making coffee to look at me. It was as if everyone was waiting on the other to tell me terrible news.

“That is nice of you to say, however our honey isn’t suited for humans. It would practically be cannibalism for a human to eat it.” Bumble explained.

We dropped the topic like a lead weight. I did not want to ask how they added a human element to honey and none of them wanted to explain it. Max looked over grasping at a way to change the topic.

“Ah, I haven’t seen that coloring before. Which hive if your friend a part of?” He asked which Bumble was glad to answer.

“This is Throckmorton. He doesn’t speak much. His hive collapsed so we took in as many as we could. Normally out kind lets hives die off, but our Queen is kind. She hated to see different honey flavors and harvesting methods die off so we adopted him as a cousin.”

While Bumble spoke. Throckmorton placed a cup of coffee in front of us. I thanked him a little surprised he made enough for everyone. The human from the other room finally rolled off the couch to sit down at the table. A cup was placed in front of him as he yawned looking us over.

“This is Christian.” Bumble introduced us and the man just nodded.

I took a sip of the coffee finding it somewhat sweet. A flash of panic came over me until I noticed the normal brand of honey on the counter neat to the coffee maker. Christian yawned again and started to look over the forms in front of him.

“I don’t know why we need to do this in person.” He said sounding tired.

“I’m sorry. I wish there was a better way but I assure you, it’s for Mr. Bumble Burns safety we do this with mailman present. Hunters could force him to fill out a change of address form in distress and cause mailmen to go to a trap. Or, on the minor side of things if we did not witness the form being filled out a different creature could ensure that mail was never delivered to the correct location as a prank. It’s not a perfect system, but it does help.” Max explained and the man seemed to accept it.

Here I thought the mailmen just helped creatures to fill out the forms if they couldn’t write. Christian and Bumble started to fill out the sheet. The Bee creature understood some of it, but he was unaware of what a postal code was so Christian was needed. It took me a long while to clue in that Bumble was moving in with the man across from me. I sipped on the coffee watching them. Bumble stood with hand a hand on Christian’s shoulder while they spoke and wrote on the sheet. It was only when I saw the creature place a hand in Christian’s free one in a gentle gesture, I knew what was going on. These two was dating and I felt dense not noticing it before. I saw a flash of a bruise on the man’s collar bone when he shifted and handed Max the finished form.

“Oh, are you hurt?” I asked not realizing my mistake.

“It’s a bug bite.” Christian answered with no hesitation and almost dared me to call me out on how it did not, in fact look like a bug bite and I knew what he was implying.

I kept my head still as my eyes darted between him and Bumble. I knew people were into some weird things, but a bee? Max checked over the form oblivious of what was going on.

“Could we fill out another form for Throckmorton?” Christian asked Max.

Two bees?! He was with the both of them? I wasn’t judging but it was a bit of a shock. I sipped louder on my coffee than intended and Christian couldn’t hide his smile at my discomfort.

“He delivers honey for the hive. We found he gets back faster if he rests here for a few hours before heading back home. If he kept going, he would be so worn out by the end of the trip he would need a day to recover.” Bumble explained as Max nodded.

We always brought extra forms so that wasn’t an issue. I felt myself looked around the kitchen a little seeing how lived in it felt. Dishes were stacked in threes inside the sink from that night's dinner. A coffee maker far too big for one person was still warm and the large honey container would take a single person ages to finish off. But perfect for three. I looked back at them, comparing Christian to the college student I met before. He wasn’t shy or nervous. He knew Bumble and Throckmorton were creatures and didn’t care. He was far more open to take their hand and give a suggestive air about their relationship. The second form was finished and handed back.

We had nothing else for the three and thanked them for the coffee. I dreaded how hyper Max was going to be for the rest of the night from it, but figured he needed a treat once and a while. I paused at the door to give them one last look over.

“I'm happy for you three.” I told them honestly.

I could have sounded condensing depending on my tone. But Christian smiled as if it was the first time anyone had ever told him such a thing. I felt as if he didn’t have anyone in his life to speak about his relationship. And if he did, I wondered how many people would judge him for being in love with two people at once. Two monsters at once. I didn’t fully understand how couples like this worked but I was still glad they found each other.

“Drop by for coffee any time.” Christian offered.

If we came by again to drop off mail, I knew we would be welcome to stay for a short coffee break. I nodded and smiled as I left the apartment to follow Max. He was halfway down the apartment stairs when he stopped, feeling my eyes on the back of his head.

I was wondering if Max would end up with a human. He wouldn’t be against it. He interacted with them very well, but aside from myself he didn’t know any. Without any doubt, someone could easily fall in love with him. He looked up at me with a smile on his face but confused on why we stopped on the stairs. I was standing higher up so I reached down to pet his head between his large dog ears. I didn’t do it often because I felt like it demeaned him a little. But he very much enjoyed it.

I was glad those two creatures found a person they cared about. And I was glad I became friends with Max. I could put aside the knowledge of how they harmed humans for a little while.

When we came across another human and monster combo it was in our final few trips of the change of address forms. And it was the most exhausting meeting.

part 7 

 

We arrived to a normal looking apartment again. I wasn’t expecting much from the trip. Just another creature to fill out a form and we could be on our way. The person who answered the door could pass off as human.

He was a little shorter than myself with red hair an impossible shade to be natural. His eyes burned red and sharp teeth lined his mouth. He also had a terrible scar slashed across his face.

“State who you are so I can decide if you are worthy of my time!” He snapped at us; his arms crossed.

“We’re here to do a change of address form for mail. You are currently living in this residence correct Mr. Red?” Max asked in his friendliest tone.

The man looked younger than me and yet he was acting as if he was above us in every way. The Mr. in front of his name appeared to win him over.

“Ah yes! I was waiting for you! This is the perfect apartment I have won over with my charm. Come inside and I shall show you how special it is. My human is out for another short while, so enjoy my voice until he arrives.”

I looked over at Max unsure if I could deal with this. I was already getting a headache from this creature’s haughty attitude. Max just smiled and followed Red inside ready to do our job. I suffered through the creature showing us mundane things declaring them special. Max reacted as if they were. They gawked over how great a blender was and I stayed silent. Maybe having a machine to blend drinks for you was a special thing in their world. It was when Max asked about Red’s human was when the gloating really went into overdrive.

“Oh! You shall see when he arrives how perfect of a human I choose! Of course, he would be perfect! I was the one who picked him after all! He can use all these machines in this house, how impressive! Without any effort he can make vegetables that were previously bitter taste wonderful! He is also able to make chunks of beef so it is still raw and perfect and yet cooked at the same time! How impressive is that?”

Red was very much enjoying saying how great his humans’ cooking talents were. I nodded hoping I was faking my agreement well enough. Red didn’t notice how bad of an actor I was. He accepted our approval. Max didn’t have to pretend. He was just happy another person was excited for something.

I wondered if I stumbled into another creature of the night dating a human. Red soon made that fact very clear. So very clear it mortified me. He started to explain how perfect his human was with certain acts that should remain private. My face flushed at the comments and I didn’t want innocent Max hearing any of this. He simply nodded along looking happy again that someone was excited to share something that they cared about with us.

“You must really love him.” Max said when Red paused to take a breath.

“Correct!” Red stated proudly. He stood with his hands on his hips as his oversized sweater started to slip off one shoulder. It was only after he spoke the gravity of what he just said sank in. His face started to match his hair color and Max reached over to help him adjust his shirt as the man’s expression slowly started to turn to horror.

“Wait! No, I mean! I’m a proud member of the Molt family! I cannot actually be in love with a human. He may be perfect because I was the one who picked him out, however he is still a human. It is my job to keep the pride of my family alive...” As Red spoke, he slowly started to lose his confidence for the first time.

He looked up silently asking me and Max to agree with him. That he truly didn’t care about the human he just so highly spoke of. I tried making my brain to work because I didn’t like that crushed expression on his face.

“I think maybe... Your family would be proud of you for finding the best human out there. Like, finding something impossibly rare.”

“Like treasure?” Red said perking up.

“Yes, your human can be a treasure.”

Max smiled over how corny I was being but I just gave him a playful nudge. It didn’t take much to cheer Red back up. Soon Max got him on task of filling out his change of address form and we left the areas he was unsure of blank until his partner came home. I doubted I could look the man in the eyes after hearing what Red said about him. I was getting a little tired as well as Max. Red was full of energy ready to drag us along the place again until his partner arrived.

When Red collapsed on the floor, I let out a yelp of surprise and ran over to him. He was out like a light when half a second before he was ready to run a marathon.

“He’s fine. Most creatures can’t interact with humans. They can get permission to do so, however in exchange they can only be awake at night. The sun just came up so he passed out.” Max explained and it made me feel relieved Red didn’t just die on us.

Since the smaller man was light, I carried him to where he showed us the spare bedroom. Inside was a canopy bed. Apparently direct sunlight could give most creatures a nasty sunburn after a few seconds. Very much like the classic vampire weakness. I tucked him into bed and closed the curtains. Aside from the over sharing bit of his private life, I didn’t mind Red too much.

Max was waiting for me in the kitchen looking over the still uncompleted forms. He debated on if we should leave them for the human to finish or wait inside a stranger's place. We settled on waiting outside for a while. Just as we we’re about to head to the door, a noise made it turn to the entrance of the kitchen. A man stood looking us over with a cold stare.

His hair and skin were dark. One eye dark and the other blue stood out against his features and he looked more inhuman than Red. His menacing air from his eyes being in our direction was enough to make me take a step back. Normally, nothing bothered Max. He could stare nightmare beast in the eye and ask for a signature for a completed delivery. But for some reason, this man made his face fall into blank shock.

“Silvia Silas....” Max’s voice was barely a whisper. He knew this man from somewhere.

My co-worker did something I’ve never seen before. He became angry. Dropping the sheets, he was in toe to toe with the human before the paper even finished falling. I stood stunned at the sight. Silvia was faster than Max. He dropped his bag and a long black steel spear seemed to come out of nowhere to block the claws that nearly tore his throat out.

My heart started to beat so fast I felt dizzy. My vision became hazy for a moment. This wasn’t like Max at all. I didn’t understand why he snapped. I was looking at his back but he appeared to have grown twice his sized. Massive claws dug into the flooring trying to push back against the spear. Only a second past and my friend had gone to the perfect kind person to a growling blood thirsty monster.

“Oh, I know you. Are you going to try and rip me apart for killing your sister?” The man said in a monotone voice. He didn’t appear worried in the slightest over Max slowly pushing him back.

I needed to place my hand in the kitchen table to steady myself. An image of Max’s sister flashed through my mind and I felt myself start to shake. I was almost sick. This man who Red spoke so highly off killed one of the girls I cared for. I ran through all the ones I knew of hoping they were all safe. Did this happen before I met Max? I’m certain he would have told me if it happened afterwards. I didn’t blame Max for his reaction but I was still terrified of my own friend and I felt guilt over the reaction twisted my stomach.

“It was regretfully valid. You saved her from harming others or herself further. However, explain to me why one of the top hunters is in a relationship with one of our kind.” Max hissed and it was not his normal voice. It sounded deep like the monster he truly was.

I felt my throat close up and I couldn’t add to this conversation.

“I don’t believe that is any of your concern.” Silvia said in a cold tone.

That answer made Max even more angry at the man. He pushed until he was able to slam Silvia against the door frame. The wood cracking under the pressure. Snarling down at the man I saw a hint of orange eyes burning in rage. The steel spear started to slowly bend.

“If you hurt him, I swear I’ll kill you!”

My friend tone made my blood feel like ice. My legs nearly gave out from under me and I fully expect Max to snap and just kill the man anyway. In the face of death, the man smiled. Not a cocky one daring Max to try and fight him. Instead, a calm one. The tension in the air slowly started to fade and Max started to pull back.

“Good. I’m glad Red has someone who cares for him." Silvia lowered the spear and Max no longer looked as if he wanted to kill the man.

My friend backed away looking like his normal cuddly self. He spotted me and had an ashamed expression on his face from losing his temper. I was still shaken from the entire event. Max grabbed the address forms he dropped and offered them to Silvia.

“If Red is going to live here, he needs to fill out a change of address to get hi mail.” Max said but didn’t look the hunter in the eyes.

The forms were taken from his hand and Silvia finished them as if he wasn’t almost killed a few seconds before hand. Max still didn’t look at the man when he took back the finished papers. He tucked them away ready to leave now that our job was done.

“Do you love him?” Max asked unable to stop himself.

“Yes. Against my better judgement. I was going to use him for information about your world then kill him however... He is far too charming.”

I’d regained some of my composure. Neither of them batted an eye over the fact my legs shook the entire confrontation. I was still a little afraid that they were going to get into a fight if the Hunter said the wrong thing. This was the first time I even encountered a Hunter before. They were humans that formed a group to take down supernatural threats. It turned from killing dangerous creatures to killing any creatures. While working, I've met kind monsters. Some better than humans in every way. But these Hunters didn’t care. If it wasn't natural, it should be dead. Over five hundred years ago, Hunters killed thousands of the mailmen and due to that, I was the only human they hired since the mass killing.

Supernatural creatures could be very forgiving when it came to others killing the ones they cared about if there was a valid reason behind it. Max would not kill because his sister was taken down if she went feral, which happened at times. But he would if this man turned on Red after the monster cared for him so deeply.

“Does he know what you are?” Max asked almost like an integration.

Silvia paused. He was picking up the bag he dropped when Max attacked him. It was clear he hadn’t let Red in on what his line of work was.

“No. I haven’t been able to break the news to him yet. I am going to do so soon. I just wanted to give him a short while longer of a good relationship, even if it may be false. If he kills me for hiding the truth, then so be it.”

I was chewing on my lip feeling stressed out over what we walked into. I placed my hand on Max’s back as a sign we should be leaving. He gave me a small nod and gave Silvia one last look. It wasn’t the one of hate as before, but he still disliked the man.

“You better take care of him until then.”

It was one last threat and Max found our own way out. I was silent the entire way until he found a good spot to make a door to get back to work to report the task finished. The door was ready but Max didn’t open it. Still hunched over with his back turned to me I sensed his discomfort.

“Did I scare you?” He asked plainly.

I paused thinking about my answer.

“Yes.” I said honestly.

He looked up at me, giving a small sheepish smile. I had been scared. More frightened than I’d even been in my entire life. But Max was still Max. At least I now knew he was a big scary monster in case anything ever tried making trouble for us. He offered his hand for me to take, which was pretty rare of him. I think he was aware of how badly I wanted to touch the pads on his hands but didn’t knowing that would be disrespectful to treat him like a dog. I think I earned a few minutes of holding his hand. We only had a few more change of address forms to finish up, and thankfully none were as eventful as the one at the Hunter’s place.

A week after that incident I had a doctor appointment for my arm. Because it was a false one made and attached by supernatural means, I needed to have it looked over once every three months. More often if it started to hurt, which it did. Max went with me because we were on the job at the same time delivering something to the clinic so I could have the doctor look over my arm after.

Dr. Fillow was the rare creature that could teat both humans and monsters. He looked completely human. His style was from the 1800’s though, making him look a bit out of date. Even his office looked to be from a past era. It was cluttered with glass bottles and vials. Piles of paper covered his desk and the room was mostly filled with cluttered shelves.

Max sat beside me as Dr. Fillow looked over my arm. It turned into a general checkup all of which Max waited patiently. He behaved and only touched a few things on the cluttered desk. He was being so good because of what happened any time we dropped by the doctor's office. After the checkup was done and I received a clean bill of health, Dr. Fillow gave us some tea and treats while he went over the results on my arm.

The tea oddly tasted of flowers, but it wasn’t too over powering. Our treats today were a piece of cheesecake. I was handed a plate with a slice of blueberry and Max was given a plate with such a massive slice I wondered how big the cake was. It looked to be peanut butter. I heard his tag wag as he wasted no time diving into the desert.

I paused with the fork halfway in the air because I realized the Dr. Fillow may have some insight to a question that was bothering me.

“So, we did some change of address forms and came across three couples. They were all men dating creatures. I just find it a bit strange that they were all men. Is there a reason why it might be more likely?” I asked.

Dr. Fillow paused thinking about my question. He adjusted his golden rim glasses with a nod.

“I believe there can be a few factors that go into there being an increased chance of same sex couples within the supernatural world. To start with, there are different religions and same sex couples do not carry the same amount of shame as it does in your world. It allows creatures to experimented more freely to see, what exactly they’re into as it were.” The doctor explained.

“It seems as if these humans were into them, if you know what I mean. Hey-oh!” Max raised his hand and on reflex Dr. Fillow gave him a high five. They both looked puzzled over the exchange. Max almost never made dirty jokes. We blamed the entire thing on him having too much sugar and the doctor being unable to leave a high five hanging.

“Anyway,” Dr. Fillow went on. “The fact that more males end up together is due to females being pressured into creating as many children as possible. Most creatures who reproduce needing two genders have a very low birthrate. Males are able to sleep with whoever they like, but female are encouraged to only have a relationship with the same gender if they have produced a child. There is also a low rate of females compared to males, so they are in demand. They can afford to be picky with their partners. Males, not so much. There is a very good chance of a male supernatural creature falling for anyone who gives him a small amount of positive attention. In fact, people are betting on when Max starts trying to date you.”

Max choked at the comment.

“Toby is like, undatable!” He said shocked at the idea.

I reached over to take his plate slowly out of his hands. Max let out a helpless whimper but didn’t resist. He just watched as the piece covered in whip cream, he saved for last slowly drifted away. I gave him a chance to explain himself before taking the cheesecake away forever.

“No, what I mean is dating Toby would be like dating my sister. It’s gross.” Max corrected.

I gave him back his plate after adding the extra whip cream from my cheesecake onto his. It was nice to know I didn’t have to worry about Max falling for me. He was my best friend and I did love him, but he was like my little brother. After he finished shoving the last of his food into his face to prevent it being stolen again, he turned to me.

“Speaking of which, Stop trying to date my sisters.”

“I'm not trying to date your sisters.” I told him wondering how he even got that idea.

“Giving them presents is like courting them.” He explained.

I did often give them packs of gum when I saw them for work. I would have never assumed such a small gesture would mean something. It must have made me look bad. I wasn’t trying to date all his half-sisters at once, but giving them gifts may have made it appear that way.

“Can I just, still give them gum and not have it taken the wrong way?” I asked and Max nodding after thinking for a while.

“If all of that is out of the way.” Dr. Fillow got our attention back to him. “Toby, I would like you to use your arm a little bit more. It was made and attached by unnatural means, so it may not react the way you would assume. It’s possible you’re avoiding using it because of the slight pain, but you need to use it more for that to go away. Max can help you with this activity.”

He opened his desk to dig around for a bit. When he pulled his hand back out, he was holding a fist sized ball with cute crabs printed along it.

“Play fetch with Max for about an hour to two every week. But don’t lose this ball. It's special.”

As he handed the ball over Max’s wide eyes never left it. He was completely still aside from his tail wagging so fast it could break the sound barrier.

“Special? Is it magic?” I asked.

“No. But the artist who draws the crabs are very popular with supernatural creatures right now. It was pretty hard to find this for you.” He replied.

No matter how often I was around these creatures I may never be able to predict their answers. I could tell Max wanted to play, and Dr. Fillow had other appointments so we started to head out. There was a park close by and I wondered if we had time. After all, we should have gone back to work after my checkup. But Max kept telling me we were fine to play for a bit. I paused at the door of the clinic to watch Dr. Fillow and the man he had working on the register in the main shop. His clinic looked like a mystic shop with crystals and natural healing out front, then all the real clinic work rooms in the back. They were speaking about stock and the latest transaction but I swore I noticed something between them. Maybe it was from how long the doctor smile about a simple statement. Without any doubt, the man was human. He may be aware of Dr. Fillow’s real clients and the fact the doctor was a creature of the night. Or he could just be some hired help. I was nearly dragged out of the shop by Max so I couldn't dwell on it.

We played catch in the park for a while. My arm felt sore and stiff at first but tossing the ball around did help. I was avoiding using my arm too much until then and I just never really noticed. While we played, I was deep in thought over everything I’d seen the past few weeks of doing the change of address forms.

Supernatural creatures ate and killed humans. But they also fell in love with them. I was having trouble trying to accept that there could be good people within their world that did horrible things. Max was the best person I’d ever met, but when he was younger, I knew he killed a human or two. And he was willingly to kill Silvia. I wondered if I could do the same thing. If my life depended on it, if I could kill someone. Maybe a creature but not a person. Maybe Max didn’t see us as equals so that was why it was easier for him, but if that was the case, why did he care about me so much?

I didn’t arrive to an answer and I thought it was possible I may never have one. My arm was starting to get tired. I was about to asked Max to take us back to the office when I heard a voice hind us.

“You were due back two hours ago!”

One of Max’s sisters. One I hadn’t met yet, was storming over to us. I was unaware of the fact we needed to head right back. And I couldn't create the door back to work either. Max did so, or they just showed up on their own.

“No, we still have time.” Max told her while staring at the ball in my hand.

I realized my mistake. Max was in a trance over the sight of the ball he couldn’t think of anything else. Furious, his sister took it from me and tossed it as hard as she could. It went clear across the park and out of sight.

“I needed that ball for physiotherapy... “I said in a small voice.

“I’ll get it!”

Max didn’t waste any time running off after the ball. I knew he would find it but I needed to be extra careful in the future and out my foot down when it came to work and play time. His sister huffed but waited for him to return so she could get us back and onto the next delivery job.

I followed her when Max came back with two balls. Mine and one he found that I let him keep. I’m still wondering about how monsters could be so kind and yet so terrifying like my co-workers.